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

[Immortal]

The fix should've worked. If you wait just a wee bit longer, 1.0 stable will be released.

[trilljester]

yayvb: Try moving this rule:

RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*)-(.*).html showthread.php?goto=$3&t=$2 [L]

to the bottom (before the vbseo stuff), and see what happens.

[yayvb]

I tried a bunch of things. I guess it's not the .hataccess file, I believe the problem lies in this code:

/* 
#------------------------------ 
# SHOWTHREAD and page 
#------------------------------ 
$found = preg_match_all('#showthread\.php\?t=([0-9]+)&page=([0-9]+)#i', $output, $matches); 

if($found) 
{ 
    // Build an array of ID's 
    $ids = array(); 

    // Keep track of page nums that go with tid's 
    $temp = array(); 

    for($i = 0; $i < $found; $i++) 
    { 
        // $temp[<threadid>] = <page> 
        $temp[ $matches[1][$i] ] = $matches[2][$i]; 

        if(is_numeric($matches[1][$i])) 
            $ids[] = $matches[1][$i]; 
    } 
    $ids = implode(',', $ids); 

    // Go through each 
    $res = $vbulletin->db->query_read("SELECT threadid, forumid, title FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "thread WHERE threadid IN($ids)"); 

    while($t = $vbulletin->db->fetch_array($res)) 
    { 
        $title = urlize($t['title']); 
        $tid = $t['threadid']; 
        $fid = $t['forumid']; 
        $foruminfo = $vbulletin->db->query_first("SELECT title FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "forum WHERE forumid='$fid'"); 
        $fname = urlize($foruminfo['title']); 
        $page = $temp[$tid]; 
         

        $output = str_replace("showthread.php?t=$tid&amp;page=$page", "$fname/t-$title-$tid-page-$page.html", $output); 


    } 

*/ 


}

I tried making small changes and retrying thinking that'll help, but no matter what I do page number links aren't being changed. It's a simple program I imagine, something looks for the URL and rewrites it. Then when you click on the rewritten URLS the .htaccess file redirects you to the RIGHT place if I'm not mistaken.

So if my urls aren't being rewritten then that must mean it's not the .htaccess file right? I will definitely wait for the stable version, I hope it's soon!!! Thanks again.

*EDIT*
I think I found the reason for the problem. It appears that the above code that is in question has comment tags before and after basically commenting all of this code!!! If I take out the 2 comment codes around this code I posted then I get a parse error grrr. The parse error I get after removing the comments codes is: Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /home/youradul/public_html/420boards/includes/functions.php(4314) : eval()'d code on line 646

Line 4314 of functions.php appears to be the global_complete hook, so obviously the code that was commented out that I pasted above is erroneous?

[robertorg]

It's possible to apply that modification to VBAdvanced??
Is recomended any robots.txt?

Good Work!!!! (It's installed, the only issue is VBAdvanced support)

[Immortal]

I posted a tutorial wayyyy back when. You may want to search the thread for "tutorial" and see if anything bites. It was for custom written rules, I haven't had a chance to play with vBA to see how it does it however. May require some plugin/file changes.

As far as robots.txt is concerned, I'm by far no SEO expert.

/me pokes T2DMan

[DavidWilson]

Hi, I've looked at the examples and downloaded the code; very easy install compared to Dan's.

One question I have in the installation is the follow:

As per step #3, I can't find the variable $headinclude in the following files:

showthread.php, newreply.php, newthread.php, forumdisplay.php, memberinfo.php

[Smiry Kin's]

Originally Posted by DavidWilson

Hi, I've looked at the examples and downloaded the code; very easy install compared to Dan's.

One question I have in the installation is the follow:

As per step #3, I can't find the variable $headinclude in the following files:

showthread.php, newreply.php, newthread.php, forumdisplay.php, memberinfo.php

i think it means the templates?

[Immortal]

Yup, Styles & Templates, no file modifications needed

[DavidWilson]

Yes, for those of you that don't know, the default template file is located here: /install/vbulletin-style.xml

Custom template files are also *.xml and can be uploaded and imported over existing templates.

[PGP]

Immortal, why not just invoke <base href="$vboptions[bburl]/" /> into the top of the headinclude tempate? IMHO, it's more easier and faster? Am I right?