Miscellaneous Hacks - DCSEO Linkbacks (Refbacks implementation)

Introduction

Dear Friends,

After much thought I have decided to release part of my upcoming DCSEO modification to the community for free.

What does this modification do?

This modification offers you the facility to track URLs that link to threads on your forum. Instead of me trying to explain to you what a linkback actually is I'll link you to wikipedia's explanation of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkback

This modification implements refbacks, but not trackbacks or pingbacks (these will be included in the DCSEO modification). Any sites that the system *thinks* link to you, are put into an approval queue in the admincp which you will see in the left-hand nav after you install the mod. This moderation queue can be turned off, but I would strongly reccomend never turning it off!

The reason this will offer you a major benefit to your search engine rankings and PR (for google), is that it will create relevant inbound and outbound traffic to your forum which the search engines love.

Installation

Download the attached zip and open the readme.txt file, and follow the instructions within it.

Support

I will be around to offer support wherever possible, but please do not PM me asking for support, as I will not respond. If you have any bugs, report them in this thread and I'll fix them as soon as possible. I am rather busy at the moment with work during the day, and full-time development of the DCSEO product in the evenings, so please be patient with me if I take a little while responding to your posts.

[TheBlackPoet]

i just thought of something... how feasible would be to have the admin recieve a pm/email when there is something to moderate???

[Dean C]

Originally Posted by TheBlackPoet

i just thought of something... how feasible would be to have the admin recieve a pm/email when there is something to moderate???

It's possible. But I would not reccomend it. On a large board you may have quite a lot to moderate, which means a lot of emails/pms

[Cybertims]

I am moderating about 10 every 15 mins, dont need any PM's LOL

Is it normal though that linkbacks are usually just my main page URL?

Cheers

[Dean C]

Originally Posted by Cybertims

I am moderating about 10 every 15 mins, dont need any PM's LOL

Is it normal though that linkbacks are usually just my main page URL?

Cheers

That is not normal. It should filter out any linkbacks from your own domain. Can you link me to an example of where you're getting this problem?

EDIT: ah I know what's causing this. It will only filter out linkbacks from your forums URL, not domain. I'll fix that tonight if I can Also I guess it would be useful to have a blacklist of domains/urls that you dont want to be processed as linkbacks.

[Dean C]

Quick fix until I update the zip tomorrow night with a blacklist:

In your 'Process incoming linkbacks' plugin find:

PHP Code:

if(substr_count($ref, $vbulletin->options['bburl']) == 0 && verify_link($ref)) 


Replace with:

PHP Code:

if(substr_count($ref, $vbulletin->options['bburl']) == 0 && substr_count($ref, $vbulletin->options['homeurl']) == 0 && verify_link($ref)) 


[Cybertims]

Ok mate, did that and I just emptied the linkback table of all the old ones and will keep an eye on things now.

Cheers.

[Brandon Sheley]

Good job Dean

[Dean C]

Just realised that people might get a lot of refbacks from search engines too, i've added the 3 big ones to the default blacklist (yahoo, msn, google). I'll release 1.1 tomorrow night with all the fixes in! I did label it as beta

[Mecho]

great mod .. i will install tomorrow night

good job Dean

already Clicked installed

[Hornstar]

Question: you are developing this new SEO product, dont you think it is time to upgrade your forums from vBulletin Version 3.0.7 to the latest o_O