Show Thread Enhancements - [SEO Enhancement] rel="author" markup for thread starters

As with the new developments around schema.org standards, Google announced that they will highlight page authors in their search results as below.




To achieve this result in SERP's you need to apply authorship markup.

For vBulletin, this can be done by adding the rel="author" markup to the threads, so this tag will get linked to the profile page of thread starter.

In template postbit(_legacy) find:

<a class="bigusername" href="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]">$post[musername]</a>

Replace it with:

<a <if condition="$thread['postuserid'] == $post['userid'] && $thread['firstpostid'] == $post['postid']">rel="author"</if> class="bigusername" href="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$post[userid]">$post[musername]</a>

Example: Becoming A Health Insurance Agent

Only thread starter has the rel="author" tag applied:

<a rel="author" class="bigusername" href="http://www.insurance-forums.net/forum/healthagent-4/">healthagent</a>

Note: This won't mean all of your members will show up as authors in google search results. Google will consider as original authors only those who have linked their Google Profile pages to your forum.

Works on all vB 3.x

Further reading here

I hope you find it useful.

[tpearl5]

see my post above...

[freepchelp]

anything for vB 4.2?

[dizzynation]

Originally Posted by tpearl5

See my reply above

Originally Posted by tpearl5

See my post in this modification: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...35#post2290535

Originally Posted by tpearl5

see my post above...

Can anyone else other then the failed attempts of tpearl5 confirm that this works on 4.2?

[ramesh_umk3]

Yep this can be applied for vBulletin 4.x.x but different pattern follow below step - by - step procedure

1) Goto Style Manager --> SHOWTHREAD

2) Search for {vb:raw threadinfo.title}

Find:

<span class="threadtitle"><a href="{vb:raw thread_url}" title="{vb:rawphrase reload_this_page}">{vb:raw threadinfo.title}</a></span>

Replace with:

<span class="threadtitle"><a rel="author" href="{vb:raw thread_url}" title="{vb:rawphrase reload_this_page}">{vb:raw threadinfo.title}</a></span>

SEE DEMO BY VIEW SOURCE "rel=author" IS ADDED TO THREAD TITLE ONLY

And dont forget to apply this mod aswell https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=242579

[tpearl5]

Originally Posted by ramesh_umk3

Yep this can be applied for vBulletin 4.x.x but different pattern follow below step - by - step procedure

Sorry, but this is not how it should be done. You're basically saying the thread is the author.

If you want to use author tags effectively read up: https://support.google.com/webmaster.../2539557?hl=en

[tpearl5]

Originally Posted by dizzynation

Can anyone else other then the failed attempts of tpearl5 confirm that this works on 4.2?

I see no reason it shouldn't work with the instructions I posted above. However, Google recently changed some things and will allow you to link directly to your Goolge+ profile. In this case I put a conditional around the Google + link for this mod to say "only put rel="author" in for the Goolge + link for the OP" . See instructions here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=175