Prevent Duplicate url ( SEO ) - forum home

[Golzarion]

Prevent Duplicate topic url on forumhome :

For Great SEO you need to prevent duplicate addresses of one page !

a unique URL per each unique resource is realy important!

vbulletin does have a problem with duplicating content.I had the same problem as here (http://www.vbseo.com/f4/duplicate-title-tags-problem-19821/) you can read . Because vbulletin has at least 2 different url addresses for one page !!!!

1. address is with the number of thread ( eg: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=194708 )
Notise : t=194708

2. sddress is with the number of post ( eg : https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=1653770 )
Notice : p=1653770

As you see this duplication address cause many problems that you can see on google webmasters tool . Also it dilutes your incoming links !! some users link to the topic with the url of theard id (...?t=xxxx) the othres link the same topic and the same page with the url of last post number (...?p=xxxx )

see more details :here (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/6076#comment-37011) .

What does this mode do ?

It prevent the most popular duplication on forum home ! ( the main page of your vBulletin forums)

How to Install ?

Just some easy template edit !

1.go to " forumhome_lastpostby"template ( admin cp =>Styles&Templates=>style manager=>all style option=>Forum home template ==>>forumhome_lastpostby)

search for :
goto=newpostFinde :
<a href="showthread.php?$session[sessionurl]goto=newpost&amp;t=$lastpostinfo[lastthreadid]"Replace it with :

<a href="showthread.php?$session[sessionurl]t=$lastpostinfo[lastthreadid]" I did this change as modification and use it on my forum . because for some reasons I didn't want install vbseo or tfseo or any rewrite modes ! (vbseo users do not need to install this mode because vbseo do the same result in the completely different way )
** Please click Installed (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/vborg_miscactions.php?do=installhack&threadid=194734) if you use this mode . ***

thanks.
http://forum.golzarion.com
.

[Golzarion]

reserved

[Golzarion]

It works fine with all versions of vbulletin ! 3.6.8 / 3.7.3/3.8.0/ and ...

Also it is xhtml transitional valid.

****
I did this change as modification and use it on my forum . because for some reasons I didn't want install vbseo or tfseo or any rewrite modes ! (vbseo users do not need to install this mode because vbseo make the same result in the completely different way )

[Golzarion]

More details :
On forum home ( the main page of your forums) when users make new post on topics ... you can see the name of that topic on the main page but with this link : " yoursite.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=xxx"

this rules redirect visitors (also google bots) and users to the URL of that topic with "post id " such as " showthread.php?p=xxx"
It makes Duplicate addresses !
And you know how bad is duplicate address is.(see the links and refers on the mode descriptions.

There was 2 popular way to get rid of that :

1.change showthead.php and fuction.php of vBulletin default php files!!

2.Buy vbseo or use tfseo or any reWrite modes.!

I used the third way : Remove and improve the forumhome link! by editing the template !

I beleive it is more usefull and easy.

[SEOvB]

actually using a robots.txt to block the showthread.php?p=postid would be the easiest way as Google will still find it your way since you haven't removed/rewritten all the links pointing to the showthread.php?p=postid links.

[Golzarion]

actually using a robots.txt to block the showthread.php?p=postid would be the easiest way ......

No ! Robots.txt in this subject doesn't solve the second problem : if members click the links on " forumhome" and they link to your forums pages with ..showthread.php?p=[postid] ...actually it dilutes your incoming link from other sites !!

You should fix the duplicate URLs to get the better incoming links from other sites !! This is what I believe !

If you improve the duplication links and prevent the others to link the ( showthread.php?p=xxx) surely it improves your incoming links and better !

Surely if someone buy the vbseo ... it acts exactly the same ( certainly by rewrite ) ... you can see the http://vbseo.com/forums ... and see the links of the threads on forumehome ... They are exactly the same as using this mode ! Both link to the URL with " thread id " !
This modification is the best for thoes who do NOT want use rewrite to fix forumhome URLs.
I think it should be the vBulletin default ! ;)

[SEOvB]

No ! Robots.txt in this subject doesn't solve the second problem : if members click the links on " forumhome" and they link to your forums pages with ..showthread.php?p=[postid] ...actually it dilutes your incoming link from other sites !!

You should fix the duplicate URLs to get the better incoming links from other sites !! This is what I believe !

If you improve the duplication links and prevent the others to link the ( showthread.php?p=xxx) surely it improves your incoming links and better !

Surely if someone buy the vbseo ... it acts exactly the same ( certainly by rewrite ) ... you can see the http://vbseo.com/forums ... and see the links of the threads on forumehome ... They are exactly the same as using this mode ! Both link to the URL with " thread id " !
This modification is the best for thoes who do NOT want use rewrite to fix forumhome URLs.
I think it should be the vBulletin default ! ;)

Great, but simply rewriting this one link doesn't remove it from your forums, users can still link to it (duplicate content still), Google can still find the link to showthread.php?p=postid. Do you know how crawlers work and find links and pages on your site?

If you want it removed to prevent the duplicate content, you'll have to rewrite every single link that points to showthread.php?p=postid which this clearly doesn't do, or block it from being crawled completely via robots.txt

So go ahead and make this tiny template edit, then in a few weeks/months do a site:http://yoursite.com/showthread.php?p= search and see how it goes.

[Golzarion]

.....If you want it removed to prevent the duplicate content, you'll have to rewrite every single link that points to showthread.php?p=postid which this clearly doesn't do, or block it from being crawled completely via robots.txt . . . . .


Thank you. Of course you're right. I know it doesn't solve all duplications on vBulletin.

But this is only to improve "forumhome" template... and reduce duplication.

[superjeff]

Like this! It could be a good way to go, but you should "convert" all the links from ?p= to ?t=!

[Golzarion]

Thank you . I've always admired your great hack tfseo (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=173738). :up:

Like this! It could be a good way to go, but you should "convert" all the links from ?p= to ?t=!
Correct.So to "convert " it I should use rewrite mode ( in order to redirect ) ? I'm thinking about light rewrite mode that do this ... of course tfseo could be a good choice ..

Any idea? I mean can a more simple rewrite fix this vBulletin duplication completely ?

[superjeff]

I think i can integrate this in my hack.. i will post you if i will do it, for example with the next 3.8 version!

[Golzarion]

I think i can integrate this in my hack.. i will post you if i will do it, for example with the next 3.8 version!

That would be great ! :)

I'm looking forward to ...

Thanks.

[Golzarion]

Update setting :this code is Re-usable Code

[Nick Harris]

This type of fix is MUCH better than relying on .htaccess (some hosts like Yahoo! don't even allow the use of .htaccess) so I'd like to see this idea expanded. Here is my two cents, hope it helps, it's worth reading to understand this issue better at least.

Basics: What you WANT fully SEO'd is...
#1 - Forum home
#2 - Individual forums
#3 - Individual threads

Those are the money pages on any forum, the rest is fluff to search engines. Dupicate url's ARE a problem both because they create duplicate content in Google's eyes (2 pages are identical: "?p=" and "?t=") but a more important issue is it DILUTES LINK VALUE. It really does...

example: someone finds one of your threads in Google, they like it, they reply and then they share the article with friends, maybe even using that social networking toolbar you have on every page. What's wrong with that right? LOTS. For starters when they post a reply and return to the thread they are NOT on the same thread Google sent them to. When someone replies they get sent back to the "?p=" version and not the "?t=" version Google sent them to so when they tell their friends and create backlinks... yup - useless since they're not aimed at your already indexed page.

Solution - find every link on the site and aim them all to one version only.
New Problem - some features require the ?p= version. You can remove those features or not make these changes.
Bigger problem - having two versions is a core part of how vBulletin works so future releases aren't likely to change all links to point at one version, if they did older sites may stop working. This is going to have to happen at the user level and no plugin can accomplish such a big change without .htaccess so it's going to take someone writting an extensive guide and debugging it as they go.

EDIT: to be more clear about features. example: when you reply to a topic you are redirected to see your post afterwards, if you were to change the ?p= to ?t= you would end up back at the thread instead, not your post... fun stuff to figure out huh?

[Golzarion]

Thanks Nick.

It would bee very nice if vBulletin prevented duplication addresses by default ... but as you mentioned it wouldn't happen in future ...

This modification is just a simple improvement I hope tfseo (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=173738) fix it completely for the next versions.

And I am really happy that see " Superjeff " payed attention to this matter.

[Golzarion]

It would bee very nice if vBulletin prevented duplication addresses by default ... but as you mentioned it wouldn't happen in future ... Well , it seems that vBulletin 4 version improved this feature . and now vBulletin 4 seo friendly URLS prevents the duplication problem by default...