vRewrite - SEOed URLs for vBulletin

About

vRewrite is an advance but simple system to rewrite vB's URLs. The rewrite system uses preg_match_all and str_replace to rewrite the URLs. It will rewrite any URLs that are dynamic ex: showthread.php?t= to /the-forum/title-of-the-forum-id.html. Why? SEs (Search Engines) rate results based on filename. Not only that, but most SEs give a "boost" to static URLs (what we do here) versus dynamic URLs. vRewrite accomplishes both of this, for all URLs that a search engine (or a guest) will see.

Installation

Please download vRewrite.zip and read install.html for more information on how to install it.

Requirements

vRewrite assumes that you are using Apache with the mod_rewrite module enabled, and running vBulletin 3.5.x. However, if you ask for support here on IIS' module or on vBulletin 3.0.x - I will be more then happy to assist you.

Contributions

I would like to thank Chroder and Cole for assisting me release vRewrite. I could not have released it if it wasn't for them.

I would like to thank the following people/boards for helping beta test vRewrite and making it a better product.

Gaming Ultimate, BP Gaming, NBS Designz Cyclez, Hosting-Talk and Forum University.

Copyright

I've spent many hours working and perfecting vRewrite. The only thing I ask you to do is if you use it, please keep the link back. If you wish to put it in your style instead, simply remove or comment out that line. However, if you use vRewrite you MUST link back. That is the only thing I ask.

Known Issues

There are no known issues with the latest release (1.0).

Support / Issues

If you have any problems or discover a bug please post here in this thread. I have also included my email in the install.html email for one-on-one support. The only thing I ask you is please do not post this email address publicly - it is my personal email.

Changelog

1.5 Release - vRewrite 1.5 has become stable, and all users under 1.5 RC3 and 1.0 need to upgrade. Support for 1.0 will no longer be offered, and you will be told simply to upgrade. Please continue to keep all bug and feature suggestions on the bug tracker at:

http://www.techhelpforum.com/vrewrite

1.1 Release - Several bug fixes, and a few new features. Details here.

03/26/06 - Updated the thread to reflect vRewrite 1.5 Beta links. vRewrite files has NOT changed.

03/11/06 - Updated the thread to take advantage of vB.org's new prefix feature. vRewrite itself has NOT changed.

1.0 Release (02/19/06) - I have released the much awaited 1.0. This is the first stable release of vRewrite. All users now should be safe installing vRewrite. For more information, and how to upgrade, please see here.

1.0 Preview (01/12/06) - I have released a preview version of 1.0. This is the final version before 1.0 is considered stable. I believe everything should work in this new preview, but one bug (see known issues). Please see here for more information and how to upgrade.

01/05/06 - Updated ZIP to include a fix for boards running a table prefix. You do not need to upgrade unless you previously had SQL errors. You can upgrade by importing the product and choose "Allow Overwrite".

Donations

Any donations are very much appreciated! I do this out of my free time and work many hours on it - all for free. Anything to help is always very welcomed

If you use vRewrite, please click Install. This helps you keep track of additional upgrades and shows to me that you care about vRewrite


You may not post vRewrite ZIP or any files contained in the ZIP on any website. You may not also post any support requests/give support on any website other then this one, without my permission. If you do so, you will get a DMCA for copyright infringement. I do not want this spread to pirated users. Please stop piracy and do not share the source outside of this thread and vB.org/com. Thanks.

Support will only be obtained at:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=182

[GamerJunk.net]

Was that directed towards me aftermath?

[Ericsson]

http://www.supercarforums.org/f-ferreri-13.html works but when you click on a thread in a subfolder, http://www.supercarforums.org/ferrer...eri-f60-4.html it doesnt work.

Any idea?

[GamerJunk.net]

Originally Posted by Aftermath

Have you updated the pack with the new bug fixes yet?

Was that directed to me Aftermath?

[Snake]

Originally Posted by RasMasta

Was that directed towards me aftermath?

Uh no, it was directed to Immortal...

[Immortal]

Originally Posted by RasMasta

Anyone else having problems where it starts to randomly make the URL's bad?

Such as http://www.gsnforce.com/forum/commen...s/newreply.php

Obviously that URL wouldn't exist...any explaination?

Where did you get that URL from? It rewrites nothing like that if I can remember correctly.

Originally Posted by Aftermath

Have you updated the pack with the new bug fixes yet?

Not yet, hoping to release something new this weekend along with all bug fixes plus merging actually working.

Originally Posted by Ericsson

http://www.supercarforums.org/f-ferreri-13.html works but when you click on a thread in a subfolder, http://www.supercarforums.org/ferre...reri-f60-4.html it doesnt work.

Any idea?

Huh? Just by looking at:
http://www.supercarforums.org/ferreri-13/newthread.php

I can tell you did not apply all necessary template changes...

[GamerJunk.net]

Immortal, I'm on my sidekick right now, so I can't enable the rewrite, but yes it does write like that. It even makes it so that when I click to go to my forum index it rewrites it so it looks like this

http://www.gsnforce.com/forum/commen...ions/index.php

[Andreas]

Not bad, but most certaily could get better
- Fix only first rhread/etc. being rewritten
- queries to get titles seems BAD
The data is already avialable in Hooks threadbit_process, etc. - use it there
- searches are not covered
- could avoid the template edits by doing $headinclude = '<base href="' . $vbulletin->options['bburl'] . "\" />\n$headinclude";

[Immortal]

Originally Posted by RasMasta

Immortal, I'm on my sidekick right now, so I can't enable the rewrite, but yes it does write like that. It even makes it so that when I click to go to my forum index it rewrites it so it looks like this

http://www.gsnforce.com/forum/commen...ions/index.php

Hm weird, not quite sure why it's doing that.

Originally Posted by Andreas

- Fix only first rhread/etc. being rewritten

I did a temporary fix a few pages back, just waiting to get all fixes together before I release an updated packaged

Originally Posted by Andreas

- queries to get titles seems BAD
The data is already avialable in Hooks threadbit_process, etc. - use it there

Sorry I'm ignorant when it comes to vB coding. Could you explain a bit more please?

Originally Posted by Andreas

- searches are not covered

Well, SEs can't search so I really didn't find this necessary to rewrite.

Originally Posted by Andreas

- could avoid the template edits by doing $headinclude = '<base href="' . $vbulletin->options['bburl'] . "\" />\n$headinclude";

Ooh, I'll take note of this. Will be very nice for future installs.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Immortal

Sorry I'm ignorant when it comes to vB coding. Could you explain a bit more please?

For example on forumdisplay.php, you are issuing a query to get the titles for all threadids found.
But, those are all the threads being displayed, so this information already has been queried before, which makes this unnecessary overhead.
The threadids, titless and forumids are available in Hoo0k threadbit_process for example (could also use threadbit_display if it's just for forumdisplay.php).
So you could build an array there, and use this to lookup the titles in global_complete to save the query.

Same goes for showthread.php, abd probably other pages as well.

Especially querying the forum table from forum titles is wasteful, as the forumcache does contain this information - and is available on every page.

Well, SEs can't search so I really didn't find this necessary to rewrite.

True. But it might help AdSense

[trilljester]

Originally Posted by Immortal

Great to hear, always happy to help anyone who converted from IPB I feel bad for you that you had to use that :nervous:

Well, when I first put up my site, IPB was free, and I wanted something free and easy, which IPB *was*. Not to derail this thread, but when they released their 2.0, and started to charge for it, and giving a crappy trial version to all those who HELPED them build 2.0...well, it felt like a slap in the face. I'm glad I'm using VB now. It's a far better product. I see the light now!

Would you mind uncommenting that line out and posting the error? My URL is:
endtofriend-arcade-release-2738.html

Done. Try doing it from this thread:

http://www.trilliummud.com/holos/gen...-out-1150.html

I click on Thread Tools, Email this Page, and it fouls up.

This is another weird issue. It works on some boards, and doesn't on others. I'm not too sure on how I can fix my preg on that one. I'll try and take a look into it but I'm in doubt that I'll fix it.

I can throw the condition over to a Regular Expression master here at my work. I'm sure he can offer some more advice than I can. I hate regular expressions, but I know they're necessary. :-)

Hm, weird. Can you give me a link on that one? I'm not a fan of the WYSIWYG editor and never really thought to test it...

OK, more info about this:

It gives me 404 errors when I start a new thread. Probably because something is wrong with this URL:

http://www.trilliummud.com/holos/the.../newthread.php

Guest posting is allowed at the above URL, try it for yourself with the WYSIWYG editor.

It does NOT have issues when replying in a thread. The reply URL is not rewritten, thus it works fine.