hello

i've maked a list of some SEO mods
i want discuss about advantage and desadvantage of these mods
i want to know your opinion about these mods

number 1
able2know mod

i think this mod is one one the best mod that you can find for phpbb
this mod will remove all unnecessary link for guest. but this mod have two part
the second part of this mod is a rewrite mod. this rewrite mod will change the
prefix of URLs form .php to .html but i think using this rewrite mod is a risk
because users like to use some internal link in their posts and as you know they
must log in first (prefix will back to normal .php format) and after that they add some
internal link to their posts. at this time you will have 2 different URL for one post
one of them is in HTML formal and another is in .php format
i think it a risk and your site can be penalized by bots. am i right ?

number 2
remove session IDs is another method for make phpbb more search engine friendly
ther are two method for removing session IDs
one of this mod is a part of able2know mod. see this:

Code: Select all

#
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------
# 

includes/sessions.php

#
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------
#

$SID = 'sid=' . $session_id;

#
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]------------------------------------------
#

if ( $userdata['session_user_id'] != ANONYMOUS ){
   $SID = 'sid=' . $session_id;
} else {
   $SID = '';
}


and another is a mod form syberalien
see this part of code:

Code: Select all

#############################################################

####
## MOD Title: Guest Sessions MOD
## MOD Version: 0.04
## MOD Author: CyberAlien <no@public_email> (Vjacheslav Trushkin) http://www.phpbbstyles.com
## MOD Description:
##      This mod removes session id for guests from url and this way
##      guests who don't have cookies like different robots will use
##      correct urls. It can be used to allow googlebot and other
##      search engines to spider your forum correctly.
##
## Installation Level:   Easy
## Installation Time:   1-2 Minutes
## Files To Edit (1): includes/sessions.php
#############################################################

#
## For Security Purposes, Please Check: http://www.phpbb.com/mods/ for the
## latest version of this MOD. Downloading this MOD from other sites could cause malicious code
## to enter into your phpBB Forum. As such, phpBB will not offer support for MOD's not offered
## in our MOD-Database, located at: http://www.phpbb.com/mods/
#############################################################

#
## Before Adding This MOD To Your Forum, You Should Back Up All Files Related To This MOD
#############################################################

#

#
#-----[ OPEN ]---------------------------------------------
#
includes/sessions.php

#
#-----[ FIND ]---------------------------------------------
# around line 157
   $sql = "UPDATE " . SESSIONS_TABLE . "
      SET session_user_id = $user_id, session_start = $current_time, session_time = $current_time,

session_page = $page_id, session_logged_in = $login, session_admin = $admin
      WHERE session_id = '" . $session_id . "'
         AND session_ip = '$user_ip'";

#
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]---------------------------------------
#
   $sql_ip = $user_id == ANONYMOUS ? " AND session_ip = '$user_ip'" : '';
   $sql = "UPDATE " . SESSIONS_TABLE . "
      SET session_ip = '$user_ip', session_start = $current_time, session_time = $current_time,

session_page = $page_id, session_logged_in = $login, session_admin = $admin
      WHERE session_id = '" . $session_id . "' $sql_ip
         AND session_user_id = '$user_id'";

#
#-----[ FIND ]---------------------------------------------
# around line 210
   $SID = 'sid=' . $session_id;

#
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]---------------------------------------
#
   $SID = $user_id > 0 ? 'sid=' . $session_id : '';

#
#-----[ FIND ]---------------------------------------------
# around line 288
            $SID = ($sessionmethod == SESSION_METHOD_GET || defined('IN_ADMIN')) ? 'sid=' .

$session_id : '';

#
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]---------------------------------------
#
            $SID = $userdata['user_id'] > 0 ? (($sessionmethod == SESSION_METHOD_GET || defined(

'IN_ADMIN')) ? 'sid=' . $session_id : '') : '';

#
#-----[ FIND ]---------------------------------------------
# around line 340
   //
   // If we reach here then no (valid) session exists. So we'll create a new one,
#
#-----[ BEFORE, ADD ]---------------------------------------
#
   elseif(empty($sessiondata))
   {
      // try to login guest
      $sql = "SELECT u.*, s.*
         FROM " . SESSIONS_TABLE . " s, " . USERS_TABLE . " u
         WHERE s.session_ip = '$user_ip'
            AND s.session_user_id = " . ANONYMOUS . "
            AND u.user_id = s.session_user_id
               LIMIT 0, 1";
      if ( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) )
      {
         message_die(CRITICAL_ERROR, 'Error doing DB query userdata row fetch', '', __LINE__,

__FILE__, $sql);
      }

      $userdata = $db->sql_fetchrow($result);

      if ( isset($userdata['user_id']) )
      {
         if ( $current_time - $userdata['session_time'] > 60 )
         {
            $sql = "UPDATE " . SESSIONS_TABLE . "
               SET session_time = $current_time, session_start = $current_time, session_page = 0
               WHERE session_id = '" . $userdata['session_id'] . "'";
            if ( !$db->sql_query($sql) )
            {
               message_die(CRITICAL_ERROR, 'Error updating sessions table', '', __LINE__, __FILE__,

$sql);
            }
         }
         return $userdata;
      }
   }

#
#-----[ SAVE/CLOSE ALL FILES ]------------------------------------------
#
# EoM


but i don't know which one is better
both of them work and i think there is no diferrences in this two mod
i want to know your opinion about this two mod. which one is better ?

number 3
mx google site map

this mod can make a XML output for google and other bots
it sounds good . i think this mod can help you a lot
i don't have anything to say about this mod. this mod is one of
the best mod that i ever found
i was in doubt to use phpbb or SMF but after i found this mod, i preffered to
use phpbb

number 4
mx SiteMaps Module V 0.0.1
i think this mod is similar to previous mod
this mod is useful too

number 5
PHP BOTS MOD (for phpBB 2.0.X)

i don't know anything about this mod
is it a good mod
who this mod can help you ?

number 6
phpbb serach engine indexer
Download Link : www.phprebel.org/releases/phpbb/phpBB.S ... ndexer.zip

this mod can make a HTML archive for your forum
this sort of mod are a little confusing
some people say that this mod is a good mod and this mod can make a HTML archive
for your forum. this archive is very simple and without any graphical improvement in
tables. some text in a simple table with standard white background with a link to
normal topic
some people say that this mos is harmful and your site can be penalized because you
try to make a 2 different age for one post. but your know that the most powerful forum
software, vbulletin has this feature and vbulletin users have not anyproblems
is it good to use this mod or not ?

number 7
<h1>....<h6> tags

you know that the text between <h1> to <h6> tag is more important for bots
specially google, if you search in phpbb template, you can't find any <h1>...<h6> tags
is it good to open viewforum.tpl and change it in this way:

Code: Select all

<td class="row1" width="100%">{topicrow.NEWEST_POST_IMG}<span class="topictitle">{topicrow

.TOPIC_TYPE}</span><a href="{topicrow.U_VIEW_TOPIC}" class="topictitle">{topicrow.

TOPIC_TITLE}</a><span class="gensmall"><br />
         {topicrow.GOTO_PAGE}</span></td>

change to this

Code: Select all

<td class="row1" width="100%">{topicrow.NEWEST_POST_IMG}<span class="topictitle">{topicrow

.TOPIC_TYPE}</span><a href="{topicrow.U_VIEW_TOPIC}" class="topictitle"><h1>{topicrow.

TOPIC_TITLE}</h1></a><span class="gensmall"><br />

just put the {topicrow.TOPIC_TITLE} betwwen <h1></h1> tags
is it a good change or not ?
you can do this job for index.tpl and viewtopic.tpl files


just it

if you know another useful mod for better indexing please tell me
about that mods.

thank you for help

your long post deserve a detailed answer.

Will answer next week

ok
no problem

amir abbas wrote:hello

i've maked a list of some SEO mods
i want discuss about advantage and desadvantage of these mods
i want to know your opinion about these mods

Let's go

amir abbas wrote:number 1
able2know mod

i think this mod is one one the best mod that you can find for phpbb
this mod will remove all unnecessary link for guest. But this mod have two part
the second part of this mod is a rewrite mod. this rewrite mod will change the
prefix of URLs form .php to .html but i think using this rewrite mod is a risk
because users like to use some internal link in their posts and as you know they
must log in first (prefix will back to normal .php format) and after that they add some
internal link to their posts. at this time you will have 2 different URL for one post
one of them is in HTML formal and another is in .php format
i think it a risk and your site can be penalized by bots. am i right ?

Yes you are right, and actually, any difference, even the slightest, between two url, beside a #something, will be a duplicate. It is not only a matter of php and html.

Taking car about removing unnecessary links for guest is a good thing, but so far it seems to me this is more of a customization every admin should understand before implementing. Because this can be done in many different ways and with quite a lot of changes.

The ideal here would be to implement a special template for guest like some other well known boards script do.

Anyway, the able2know method for this part works well, and I'll be happy to give advices on this part too. It's just that I believe this is part of design and should be well prepared for all projects. Getting rid of unnecessary links is really useful, but also just a part of what can be done to optimize a page.

amir abbas wrote:number 2
remove session IDs is another method for make phpbb more search engine friendly
ther are two method for removing session IDs
one of this mod is a part of able2know mod.

and another is a mod form syberalien
see this part of code:

but i don't know which one is better
both of them work and i think there is no diferrences in this two mod
i want to know your opinion about this two mod. which one is better ?

Well, it seems to me that the able2know method will generate one session per followed link for every guests where the cyberalien one will track and update one session per guest accepting cookies.

So in the end it seems to me that the cyberalien method is more efficient because most user (bots + human) will accept the very safe phpbb cookie.

amir abbas wrote:number 3
mx google site map

this mod can make a XML output for Google and other bots
it sounds good . i think this mod can help you a lot
i don't have anything to say about this mod. this mod is one of
the best mod that i ever found
i was in doubt to use phpbb or SMF but after i found this mod, i preferred to
use phpbb

Hehe, thanks a lot

Actually, [phpBBFanMode] phpBB is the best bulletin boards script ever written [/phpBBFanMode]

Have you heard about the phpbbstyles.com sql cache mod ?

Because I use it on this site and it gives pretty good results. Another great addition by Cyberalien by the way, released thanks to DoobDee and giving a new life to the phpBB 2 branch, at least according to me

amir abbas wrote:number 4
mx SiteMaps Module V 0.0.1
i think this mod is similar to previous mod
this mod is useful too

Yes, It is very useful too. Because we know Google Page Rank (PR) is taking into account both external and internal links. The first kind is used to measure how important is your site, the second kind to find out which page are the most important. And since the PR is defined as the probability ones have to be visiting your page at a given time, it also depend on the way your site is linked to himself.

You may have noticed some sites have some extra links in Google search results like yahoo ? Noticed the small blue links under the url ?

These are directly depending on how the yahoo domain is linked to himself and organised. Here, it is separated with sub domains, but directory structures can lead to the same thing. And Google is apparently putting those on well organized and big enough sites, it's not something one can ask for.

Now this is not what the mx sitemap will do, it was just to show you how much internal linking is crucial in the end, and a good sitemap is the first thing to take care of, just because it is a very simple and totally risk less way to provide more links to your site, even if they are not external, they do play an important role.

And if you think again about the PR definition, you will understand the probability is raising with the number of links. Even, every site map's pages is able to provide a reasonable amount of good links on dynamic pages.

In addition, if you implement the Auto link Add on, you will see your site map's PR increasing faster and then being transmitted to your site, and even more with a mod rewrite which is not providing duplicates like on the the few I am thinking of

And it will also help bots to find content in your site (Google is number one, but not alone ) while being useful to human user as well.

amir abbas wrote:number 5
PHP BOTS MOD (for phpBB 2.0.X)

i don't know anything about this mod
is it a good mod
who this mod can help you ?

Well, the idea behind it is excellent (lighter for every body, server and bots), but in the end I choose not to use it.

Reason is I don't want to be blacklisted, and the useful part of the Bots mod is that it outputs an optimized template for bots, which technically is cloaking. And Google, as well as major Search Engine do not tolerate cloaking.
I do think the Bots Mod method is not cheating, because you do not change the search-able content, but again, technically, we would output a page quite different from the "human" one.
I know of some site using this mod without problems so far, but who knows, many sites as well do badly cloak without problem so far and many other where blacklisted one day ...
The problem is to compare risk against advantages. And here, advantages are a bit too unstable (content will always be the major interest of a site) to risk all of what you wanted when you though about it, at least until Google tells us a bit more about cloaking and what could be acceptable.
Because for now, even getting rid of SID upon User Agent and / or IP fells under the strict cloaking definition and is thus not officially accepted by Google.
And you have to keep your ip list up to date for the system to work well (and it's not that easy).

Concerning the performed stats, well, Apache logs do tell a lot more so, the extra SQL are not really needed here.

amir abbas wrote:number 6
phpbb serach engine indexer
Download Link : www.phprebel.org/releases/phpbb/phpBB.S ... ndexer.zip

this mod can make a HTML archive for your forum
this sort of mod are a little confusing
some people say that this mod is a good mod and this mod can make a HTML archive
for your forum. this archive is very simple and without any graphical improvement in
tables. some text in a simple table with standard white background with a link to
normal topic
some people say that this mos is harmful and your site can be penalized because you
try to make a 2 different age for one post. but your know that the most powerful forum
software, vbulletin has this feature and vbulletin users have not anyproblems
is it good to use this mod or not ?

I have tested this mod, and in the end I choose not to use it. I don't think it is this good to provide duplicate content in every cases.
For sure the pages generated by this code have good chances to get well Ranked, even though URLs could look nicer, but the problem is, they have pretty good chances to get better Ranked than your actual pages, so that they'll show up first in search results.
I personally do not like to fell on those while searching content, I get annoyed when I cannot find my way to the real site, to see what it really looks like.
Another mod to do this is the one that give a "Printable" version of your topics.
It should not be dangerous to use those, but in the end I am not very sure it's such a good thing, both for human not enjoying your nice design and bots which will be more and more precise in finding what is duplicate content and what is content.

Vbulletin here does something different, it shows lightest pages to guest, but with the same url. It's closer to the Bots mod methode, but without cloaking (bots "see" the same pages as human guests)
My principle on this is one page, one content, one url, many links

amir abbas wrote:number 7
<h1>....<h6> tags

you know that the text between <h1> to <h6> tag is more important for bots
specially google, if you search in phpbb template, you can't find any <h1>...<h6> tags
is it good to open viewforum.tpl and change it in this way:

just it

if you know another useful mod for better indexing please tell me
about that mods.

thank you for help

Yes, many things have been written about the h1 tags, but in the end I am not really convinced.

For sure the lightest html code, with more div and css than tables is better.
But I am pretty sure the h1 interest is, if not already useless, going to be less and less important.
Because a css class is not that heavier and could actually be understood by bots as a site being more styled (thus more interesting?)
This look to me kind of like an historical "cheat", something close to a code still being under development, almost a bug if your really think about it.

I am ready to bet this will not last But for sure the lighter, the better.

Hehe, thanks a lot Very Happy

Actually, [phpBBFanMode] phpBB is the best bulletin boards script ever written [/phpBBFanMode] Wink

Have you heard about the phpbbstyles.com sql cache mod ?

Because I use it on this site and it gives pretty good results. Another great addition by Cyberalien by the way, released thanks to DoobDee and giving a new life to the phpBB 2 branch, at least according to me Wink

I found this very confusing at their site.

What does it do dcz?

sceltic wrote:

Hehe, thanks a lot Very Happy

Actually, [phpBBFanMode] phpBB is the best bulletin boards script ever written [/phpBBFanMode] Wink

Have you heard about the phpbbstyles.com sql cache mod ?

Because I use it on this site and it gives pretty good results. Another great addition by Cyberalien by the way, released thanks to DoobDee and giving a new life to the phpBB 2 branch, at least according to me Wink

I found this very confusing at their site.

What does it do dcz?

It is suppose to speed up your phpbb. and it does even though some people have reported that they actually have seen no differance. it caches your SQL too so that is always a good thing. maybe dcz can give you a more broader explanation. but it's a pretty nifty mod to have I can tell you that.

The phpBBstyles.com SQL cache system is just a clever SQL cache system that caches SQL queries like style setup, smiles setup, board config and many others to flat php files.

The interesting part of it is that it will store the processed result of queries.

So if your SQL server is not localhost, you will save one SQL connection per cached query and thus will see SQL server load goes down by almost half.
And many times the number of simultaneous connection is limited, so that you win a lot using this mod.

If the SQL is local, you still win time because the queries are stored processed and because you will access a file directly from php instead of loading the DB interface and to run your SQL server software (which obviously cannot be faster).

But, this mod is a bit hard to install at first, and in the end it's more of a method to follow that can be extended for many mods performing SQL queries.

For the people that where saying tis mod does not changes much, I'd say they either did not implement it correctly (number one mistake is not to CHMOD the cache/ folder to 777), or did it on a poor hosting.

The main issue with the mod is it will create a lot of cache files in the end, so that you'll need pretty descend Hard drives to run it well, but besides those I cannot find any reason why it should not speed up page loading.

For example phpBB SEO is using the principle almost everywhere, with extended support for almost all mods.

By the way peter77, since you are using the system, open up the mx Sitemaps files, I left commented the changes to achieve to activate sql cache for it, you just have to comment the actual if "query ok" and uncomment the one underneath As you can see, I started new extension for it (not always 'post_'). My idea in this case was to speed up HD access (if all cache files starts with the same ext, the search has to be performed on the md5 hash for all files, here, I group them by use so that the different ext help to find the corresponding files faster, nope, there is no small optimization just wait to run 5000 sessions )

So here are some data's from here : First page load after clearing Cache, then reload with cached files.

Home page :
33 sql - 0.1128 s => 23 sql - 0.1069 s

Forum index :
0.10641 s — 16 sql => 0.08707 s — 6 sql

mods phpBB SEO forum :
0.08903 s — 18 sql => 0.07534 s — 11 sql

This is while being logged, so it's even less without. As you can see almost half queries end up not being done after the cache is built. And is this example page load is speed up by 15 to 25%.

Other tests have shown me that the speed up in % will even be more important when your page would have taken a lot of time to load, meaning that, for example, if we'd be already running 5000 sessions here, on the same server, thus needing like 3 sec for a page load without sql caching, page loading time would then go down by more than 25% for sure, because the more an SQL would last to be processed (when the server load is at the max), the more you'd win by not performing it )

As a conclusion, I'd say, this mod just makes phpBB 2 as fast as any more recent board script, but need to be implemented with great care, cause there are many code changes to apply, and tested on the end hosting before making any more decision.

++

Thanks Peter and DCZ for the answers.


PHPBBstyles do the extreme styles, template caching system

what do ye think of that template system ?

and

Can this sqyl cache work alongside that?

And would there be any known issues or likely with mysql 5 and php5

Yup, they both work great along side each other. it about caches pretty much everything that sits in your phpbb folder like the quiz mod, shop mod, ect ect. it caches your templates so that it does not have to load up each time a user browses your forum. probably speeds up your forum by 1-3 seconds? depending on how 'heavy' your forum is. extra mods ect.

I use it on my Boyz theme ( wich is a copy of subSilver anyway ) works just fine. these cache MODs shouldn't have any negative affects on dcz's SEO MODs.
all they do is help speed up your forums.

XS templating system is quite faster than the regular phpBB one.
phpBB comes with a contrib template.php file caching the template files kind of like XS mod does, but, without adding the extra commands XS allows. In both case, you should end up with a faster page loading with a bit less server load.

Using XS mod is quite handy now days, because it will allow to use right now most of the templating commands that will be implemented in olympus.
It is also a requirement for the simple sub forum mod to work properly.
It does not changes any phpBB line, and you do not even need to use all the extra admin settings if you prefer, so I always use it for now

I do not know much about mysql 5 and the cached generation mod (sql cache), look up in the release thread, this might have been discussed. Worth a try anyway

And peter77, have you had a look to my previous post ?

dcz wrote:By the way peter77, since you are using the system, open up the mx Sitemaps files, I left commented the changes to achieve to activate sql cache for it, you just have to comment the actual if "query ok" and uncomment the one underneath As you can see, I started new extension for it (not always 'post_'). My idea in this case was to speed up HD access (if all cache files starts with the same ext, the search has to be performed on the md5 hash for all files, here, I group them by use so that the different ext help to find the corresponding files faster, nope, there is no small optimization just wait to run 5000 sessions )

++

dcz wrote:
And peter77, have you had a look to my previous post ?

dcz wrote:By the way peter77, since you are using the system, open up the mx Sitemaps files, I left commented the changes to achieve to activate sql cache for it, you just have to comment the actual if "query ok" and uncomment the one underneath As you can see, I started new extension for it (not always 'post_'). My idea in this case was to speed up HD access (if all cache files starts with the same ext, the search has to be performed on the md5 hash for all files, here, I group them by use so that the different ext help to find the corresponding files faster, nope, there is no small optimization just wait to run 5000 sessions )

++

Your probably talking about the mxbb version? I'm using the phpbb one instead. no paticular reason... it was very easy to switch back and fourth and finally decided to stick with phpbb since it was not a good idea to keep changing URLs like that.

I forgot to tell you I noticed you where using the phpbb installation of mx sitemaps. Instead, you could use the mxBB installation (same package) and get your portal pages listed as well in the same time.

You also have a Auto link add on for such case, and, you can have exactly the same output with mod rewrite for sitemaps if you go for standalone (you just need to move the sitemaps.php file from the module folder to mxbb root and activate the satandalone mode in acp).

Then, talking about the cached generation mod (sql cache) I was meaning that the files actually released in the mx sitemaps package are almost ready to cache many sql queries for those using the mod with phpBB.
The required code is just commented.

Open up the module files located in the includes/ folder, you will se things like :

Code: Select all

//Begin sql cache
if( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) )
//if( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql, false, 'sitm_')) )
//End sql cache

You just need to change those to :

Code: Select all

//Begin sql cache
//if( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) )
if( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql, false, 'sitm_')) )
//End sql cache

and this particular query will be cached thanks to the phpbbsytes.com sql cache mod

++

Ohh in the includes files. nice... thank you. yeah I tried both mxbb and phpbb... I preferd the phpbb version then mxbb for this MOD. but thanks for the info.

Peter77 wrote:Ohh in the includes files. nice... thank you. yeah I tried both mxbb and phpbb... I preferd the phpbb version then mxbb for this MOD. but thanks for the info.

Well, they end up being exactly the same, you just have one more page listing portal pages look at this example using the standalone mode.

++

The ideal here would be to implement a special template for
guest like some other well known boards script do.

its a good idea but at this time you have to use one the famous template
i think phpbbstyle templates are the lightest and best
templates for phpbb, they are more standard than other
templates

Well, it seems to me that the able2know method will generate
one session per followed link for every guests where the
cyberalien one will track and update one session per guest
accepting cookies.
So in the end it seems to me that the cyberalien method is
more efficient because most user (bots + human) will accept
the very safe phpbb cookie.

ok i wanted to know this part
thank you

Have you heard about the phpbbstyles.com sql cache mod ?
Because I use it on this site and it gives pretty good results.
Another great addition by Cyberalien by the way, released
thanks to DoobDee and giving a new life to the phpBB 2
branch, at least according to me

Perfect !!!
very good mod
i installed this mod, i think my forum become 30% farster
thank you

Vbulletin here does something different, it shows lightest
pages to guest, but with the same url. It's closer to the Bots
mod methode, but without cloaking (bots "see" the same
pages as human guests)

but archive pages of vbulletin have a different url
the urls are not the same
for example
see this link

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/archive/ ... 21662.html