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Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:33 am
by dude81
Hello Mods,
I have an idea for this forum. I think this forum contains some huge solutions of PHP and other. Why not make all of them SEO friendly URLS, with title seperated with hiphens in .htaccess. Would that be tough?
Thank You
dude81
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:09 am
by volomike
And something else I noticed too -- the URLs here go bad eventually. I had a bookmarked URL from like 2 years ago, I clicked it, and the page came up dead.
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:18 am
by pickle
We could write an .htaccess to change viewtopic.php?f=6&t=113979 into viewtopic/6/113979/, but that wouldn't really help with SEO. The inner workings of phpBB would still use viewtopic.php?f=6&t=113979, so any bots parsing the page wouldn't see the pretty URLs.
I have no comment on threads expiring. To the best of my knowledge they don't get pruned automatically.
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:20 am
by dude81
A little work around with database won't help in getting the urls pretty?
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:21 am
by pickle
The database doesn't need to be changed - the code that points to it would need to be. We tend not to mess around with phpBB code.
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:33 am
by dude81
Yeah, PHPbb has a good hacking history

, But if this is done by PHPBB people, I think most forums would get popular with search engines. Atleast first 100 results would be useful
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 2:05 pm
by pickle
I don't think changing the URLs from viewtopic.php?f=6&t=113979 to viewtopic/6/113979/ would have any effect really. The URL still wouldn't contain any keywords and wouldn't be related to the content of the page at all, so there wouldn't be any real SEO advantages.
If it was hacked to be viewtopic/6/113979/idea-for-forum, then there might be some advantages. I cringe at the thought of what we'd have to do to phpBB to get all the internal links to work that way though.
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:53 pm
by Darhazer
I've never thought that devnetwork needs SEO, it's the best forum anyway. And as far as I remember, I found it in Google

Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:27 pm
by dude81
Yep, I did too. I found devnetwork on Google. But my question was more intended to make each and every topic of devnetwork SEO friendly. Like this, The title "Idea for forum" could be made to "idea-for-forum", rather than /?t=113979.
Hope I'm clear.
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:39 pm
by s.dot
I don't think it would be that hard, really.
Just rewrite viewtopic.php?f=6&t=113979 to topic/6_forum-name/113979_topic-name (instead of viewtopic/6/113979/idea-for-forum)
This could be done with:
Code: Select all
RewriteRule ^topic/([\d]+).+/([\d]+).+$ /viewtopic.php?f=$1&t=$2
Editing the templates to use the new links would be a bit more of a hassle, but not undoable. Just make the forum and topic name a "url safe string" (eg "please-help" instead of "!!!!PLEASEHELP@##$")
But I don't know if I'm for or against the idea. Devnet doesn't hurt in terms of search engine positioning and I'm not sure the current setup and server could handle more traffic (if it would even help SEO - I'm no SEO expert)
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:26 am
by dude81
Yes a little effort can help devnet little more. Current setup you need not worry. Once traffic comes, investors would be interested. Advertising can always for earn revenues for the forum. And Dev net has more than 30k solutions of PHP. I'm sure they will help little more easily those who are searching for solutions to the problem. This can definitely be a hub for PHP employers as well.
I'm sure this will be the start of a good change. Just imagine, Once this really proves well, many of the BB forums may opt for this solution. Search engines will be flooded with solutions, if we just start on this.
I know there are some really best PHP guys (mods (no doubt on them) and many others) in this forum, who can make this happen.
thank you
dude81
Re: Idea for Forum
Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:49 am
by s.dot
As far as I know, Devnet is not interested in investors (though perhaps, a dedicated server provider

), and definitely not interested in earning revenue and absolutely not earning revenue from third party ads.
Once again I would like to state I am not for or against the idea, just adding my two cents.
