Are forum applications safe for our PRs? And how can we use Forum Applications more efficiently, for example HTML should ON/OFF?

what else?

You are using a phpbb forum so to make your forum more seach engine friendly use mod_rewrite. You can read about it here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html

As for html on or off, I prefer to leave it on so links can stay live but it does leak a very small portion of PR out of the system and also attracts link spammers so all depends on how vehemently you are going to moderate.

:vehemently is not a word I just like it, I have decided it means "well" lol

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SEO guy, what does "mod_rewrite" mean for sites that are hosted on windows platforms?

Since we are hosting our own forum, it never occurred to me search engines could index the postings.
They can probably index the static forum links, but not the actual postings which are dynamic. Any thoughts?

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Joel Katona
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SEOStudio.com
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mod_rewrite is a function of Apache, so unless you are running Apache on your Windows server, you aren't going to be able to use it. Search engines (specifically Google) can spider and index dynamic URLs, as long as you keep "id=" out of the URL and you are not using sessions within the URLs. Ideally no more than 2 or 3 different fields/parameters within your URLs.

- Shawn

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in my server, Apache isint installed ( host representetive said this), so what if i install VBulletin? is Vbulletin search engine friendly withour any Apache modification?

VBulletin 3 has a search engine friendly archive of all posts so yes you will not have to hack or mod the script at all. To see what it looks like go down to the bottom of the forum and click the "archive" button.

As for mod-rewrite on a windows server there is an application call isapi that has a very similar application http://www.isapirewrite.com/ for more info

Thanks for the greatly useful URL Morgan, i think seo-guy.com's forums will be one of the best SEO forum soon.

Anyway, i am bringing a mod file (for phpBB) , just replace it with current /includes/sessions.php and it will remove all the sid in URLs.
in action: http://www.kusadasi.biz/forum


Morgan, can u examine my forum and tell me my phpBB is okey now for Search Engines, if so, forum members easly use the modification which is below.

the mod file : http://www.kusadasi.biz/forum/includes/sessions.txt
download and just change the file to sessions.php and upload to .../phpBB-forum-name/includes/

Cheers

kusadasi-guy, thanks a bunch for the session script, I will give it a try on our own forum.

Just out of curiosity what are the advantages VBulletin offers over phpBB?

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Joel Katona
Trendmetrix Software
SEOStudio.com
Search Engine Optimization Software SEO Studio: Link Popularity, Keyword Analysis, Ranking and Submission

>>Just out of curiosity what are the advantages VBulletin offers over phpBB?

Nothin so much! VBullettin is more beauty lookin and some more additional features. in my opinion they are all same.

vBulletin 2.x wasn't worth the price compared to phpBB, but 3.0 is (in my opinion). There are tons of minor things that are better than phpBB, but they all add up... handles daylight savings time, doesn't require modding to make it search engine friendly, signatures work even when doing a quick reply, email notifications include the message within the email, main forum view shows newest thread (not just poster), thread views within forums show (by the icon) threads you have already participated in, etc, etc, etc... For back-end stuff it's more configurable, faster and scales better than phpBB.

- Shawn

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