Mini Mods - HTTP Error Response Codes by BOP5 (Help reduce "soft 404" errors for improved SEO)

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5 / Qapla.com

This issue was brought to my attention by Sherrie at TAZ in this thread.

The issue is that when Google crawls a site and runs into the vBulletin No Permission message or other standard vBulletin error pages vBulletin gives the standard "200" HTTP response code which means everything is OK, even though there is no real content on these pages. Therefore Google considers these "soft errors" and they can damage overall SEO of your site if there are too many of them.

What this does is make vBulletin return standard HTTP "Error" responses- by default 403 (Not Authorized) for No Permission pages and 404 (Not Found) for general error messages. When Google sees these responses (as opposed to 200) it knows not to bother indexing the page and everyone is happy.

As of version 2.2 new options have been added to return custom response codes when the forum is closed or when the forum is busy. It will also send a retry header telling the crawler they can try again later. As of version 2.0 there is also a separate response code for search.php errors.

A limitation of this mod is it works best with PHP 5.4.0 or higher. As of version 2.0 If you are on an older version of PHP it may not work, but it should not cause any errors, so it is worth trying.

There are no instructions, once installed it is enabled by default. In Admin CP -> Settings -> Options -> HTTP Error Responses by BOP5 you can enable/disable the mod and choose the response codes you want for the two different error types. You can use any standard HTTP response code available from this list at wikipedia.

The mod works fine on VB 3.x or 4.x including VB 3.8.8 (still in Beta) and VB 4.2.2.

To test that it is working use a free online status checker such as: http://httpstatus.io/
(Note the site will cache your result for a while so test with a unique URL each time.)

Before you install the mod any URL that will show a no-permission or other vBulletin error will show a status code of 200. After installing the same page will show a 403, 404, or other code that you have configured.

Added Boothby as a "co-author" as thanks for his contribution of code and ideas. :up:

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Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
Donations always appreciated. :up:
Nominate MOTM if you LOVE it!

[BirdOPrey5]

New as of Version 2.0 - No more PHP 5.4.0+ requirement. Should now work on older PHP versions as well.

New as of Version 1.1 - Added response code for search page errors/

[atcspaul]

great job and thank you, I installed and going to see how it does,

[Gadget_Guy]

Sees to be working fine for me

VB 3.8.7

PHP 5.2.17

Putting in a "protected" URL into that test site you provided responds with "403"

This is a section someone has to be a "registered user" to see.

D.

[BirdOPrey5]

Updated to version 2.2. Added options for board closed, and board too busy. Added Boothby as supporter/co-author.

[atcspaul]

working awesome, all soft errors are gone and only have access denied and not found errors nominated mod of the month

[Gadget_Guy]

Update,

It turns out that this mod does not work after-all for MY system.

Users are getting a lot of these errors:

When person tried to register:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function http_response_code() in /home/XXXXX/public_html/forums/includes/functions.php(2953) : eval()'d code on line 65

No new threads message and failed CSS loads

Fatal error: Call to undefined function http_response_code() in /home/XXXX/public_html/forums/includes/functions.php(2953) : eval()'d code on line 43

VB 3.8.7
PHP 5.2.17

Is this something to expect with the version of PHP I have?

D.

[Gadget_Guy]

Additional question.....

Would it be a good or bad thing to have my hosting company upgrade the version of PHP to 5.4.x ?

Are there any downsides to upgrading the PHP version?

D.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Gadget_Guy

Update,

It turns out that this mod does not work after-all for MY system.


Users are getting a lot of these errors:

When person tried to register:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function http_response_code() in /home/XXXXX/public_html/forums/includes/functions.php(2953) : eval()'d code on line 65


No new threads message and failed CSS loads

Fatal error: Call to undefined function http_response_code() in /home/XXXX/public_html/forums/includes/functions.php(2953) : eval()'d code on line 43


VB 3.8.7
PHP 5.2.17


Is this something to expect with the version of PHP I have?

D.

Oh, that is my bad. I know what I did wrong... Let me make a quick update. The problem is only on VB 3.x.

[BirdOPrey5]

Updated to version 2.1.1. Fixed error on for VB 3.x users on legacy PHP versions (below 5.4.0)

This will fix your issue @Gadget_Guy.

I forgot to include the VB3 version of one of the plugins.

[Gadget_Guy]

Thanks!

What about my other question in regards to "should I upgrade my PHP"

D.