Major Additions - [DBTech] DragonByte SEO v2 (vB4)

Improve your URL structure and alleviate duplicate content penalties for your forum with DragonByte SEO, a search engine optimisation mod for vBulletin 3.8.x and vBulletin 4.x.x.

Uses
DragonByte SEO is a complete, modern and fully supported Search Engine Optimisation solution for vBulletin 3.8.x and vBulletin 4.x.x, allowing you to easily eliminate duplicate content penalties from search engines and improve the search engine friendliness of your content URLs via multiple powerful tools.

By giving you total control over how the URLs are presented, DragonByte SEO allows you to customise your site's URL structure should you so choose, or leave the settings at their default values for a "set-it-and-forget-it" experience.

Integrated sitemap builders automatically submit multiple content types to various search engines, ensuring any new URL formats are instantly picked up upon.


Customer Performance Data

This graph was provided by a customer demonstrating the changes he noticed while running DragonByte SEO. Click here to read more details.



A report showing changes across multiple customers sites/setups is in the works.

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Other addons available @ www.DragonByte-Tech.com/forum
Support posted at our forum is generally answered much quicker.

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If you like this mod please hit the button to the right ---->

Please remember to click the, button to the right if you installed the mod ---->

What does 'Marking As Installed' do ?

* It helps you to stay on top of updates - members who have installed modifications will be notified by us whenever new updates are available.

* For security issues - vbulletin.org will contact all members who have installed a modification whenever a security issue is brought to their attention.

* Marking a modification as installed also helps us know how many people are using our work, giving us extra incentive to provide more features and new modifications.

We appreciate the support!

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Major Features (Lite)

PHP 5.4 Support: By creating DragonByte SEO on PHP 5.4, we've been able to ensure compatibility with this PHP version in the event you or your host decides to upgrade in order to continue to receive bugfix and security updates.

Google Analytics Integration: You can easily integrate Google Analytics with your forum by simply entering your account ID, and choose the level of detail you want to track.

Dynamic Meta Tags: Meta Keywords and Descriptions can become content-aware on certain pages like blogs and threads, increasing the relevance of these pages.

External Link Handling: You can choose to add "nofollow" to all external links, preventing search engine spiders from leaving your site. With the ability to fine-tune where this applies, white- and blacklist support as well as optional anonymisation techniques, you are in complete control over your external references.

Powerful URL Rewrites: Almost every URL found in vBulletin can be rewritten via powerful rewrite rules, enabling you to customise your rule set to perfection. The default rewrite URL settings match that of DragonByte-Tech!

Sitemap Generation: Sitemaps can be automatically created for all supported URLs, and automatically submitted to search engines.


Major Features (Pro)

vBSEO Importer: DragonByte SEO is compatible with vBSEO rewrite rules, and can import your rule set from the latest version of vBSEO seamlessly.

Custom URL Rewrites: Take further control over your forum URLs with the ability to write your own URL formats.

Custom Blog Domain: Run your vBulletin Blog from blog.yourdomain.com (or any other domain you wish).

Custom CMS Domain: Run your vBulletin CMS from cms.yourdomain.com (or any other domain you wish).

Custom Rewrite Rules: If you have custom vBulletin-powered pages, you can create rewrite rules for them using this feature.

Custom Sitemap URLs: Your custom pages can also be added to the sitemap, with individual update frequency / priority / last update date settings.

Custom 301 Redirects: You no longer have to edit your server-side rewrite rules in order to create 301 redirects for your content.

Content-Aware SEO Titles: Blogs, CMS Articles and Threads can generate SEO titles based on the content rather than the title, great for forums with a high number of unhelpful titles.

Advanced Logging: Spider and Sitemap hits can be logged, and the logs can be browsed via the DBSEO AdminCP via the same intuitive interface used in vBulletin's own log browsers.


Complete Feature List (Lite)

Persistent SEO Titles

• Store SEO'd titles in a database table
• Saves processing when loading a page
• Ability to turn it off via settings

vBulletin Options

• Display Version Number
• (Optional) Conntrol Panel Password
• Whether the password replaces or augments usergroup settings

Usergroup Permissions

• Can Administer DragonByte SEO

Sitemap Generator

• Based on the default vB4 sitemap builder
• Submits to more search engines than vBSEO sitemap builder & vB4 sitemap builder
• Powerful error handling
• Works with the "Global Ignore" system
• Integrates with the "Admin Message" system to display errors if needed
• Can be re-built manually via the DBSEO CP

Sitemap Settings - General

• Enable Automatic Sitemap Generation
• Automatic Sitemap Generation Frequency (Days)
• Automatic Sitemap Search Engine Submission
• Sitemap File Path
• URLs Per Page
• Email Notifications

Sitemap Settings - Page Settings

• Excluded Forums
• Smart Show Thread Update Frequency
• Smart Priority
• Custom Priority
• Include Show Post
• Show Post Update Frequency
• Show Post Priority Range
• Include Member Profiles
• Member Profile Update Frequency
• Member Profile Priority Range
• Include Show Thread
• Show Thread Update Frequency
• Show Thread Priority Range
• Include Forum Display
• Forum Display Update Frequency
• Forum Display Priority Range
• Include Poll Results
• Poll Results Update Frequency
• Poll Results Priority Range
• Include Blog
• Blog Update Frequency
• Blog Priority Range
• Include Blog Tag
• Blog Tag Update Frequency
• Blog Tag Priority Range
• Include Member Profile Album
• Member Profile Album Update Frequency
• Member Profile Album Priority Range
• Include Social Group
• Social Group Update Frequency
• Social Group Priority Range
• Include Social Group Discussion
• Social Group Discussion Update Frequency
• Social Group Discussion Priority Range
• Include Tags
• Tags Update Frequency
• Tags Priority Range
• Include CMS Content
• CMS Content Update Frequency
• CMS Content Priority Range
• Include CMS Section
• CMS Section Update Frequency
• CMS Section Priority Range

Canonical URLs

• Supported URL formats 301 redirects to its canonical URLs
• Prevents duplicate content
• Improves compatibility with old URL formats

Datastore Caching

• Reads config.php and uses the Datastore cache parameters
• Disable Datastore caching for DBSEO only, while remaining active for the forum
• Cache the following queries
  • Username Reverse Lookup
  • Social Group
  • Social Group Discussion
  • Social Group Message
  • Social Group Picture Comment
  • Album
  • CMS Content
  • CMS Category
  • User
  • User Picture
  • Package
  • Content Type
  • vBulletin Options
  • Forum Cache
  • Attachment
  • Blog
  • Blog Custom Block
  • Blog Category
  • Poll
  • Post
  • Thread
  • Next Thread
  • Previous Thread

Cache Purging

• Automatically purges the cache when you save settings
• Quick link to manually purge the cache if need be

General / Other

• Shortcut link to the DBSEO AdminCP in the vBulletin AdminCP

General Settings

• Turn mod on/off
• Configure 404 handling
• Choose between www and no-www with 301 redirects
• Excluded pages

Link Titles

• Choose how title is added to links
• Enable for external URLs
• External URL blacklist

Google Analytics

• Turn Google Analytics integration on or off
• Input Google Analytics account ID
• External link tracking, to track outgoing links
• Format to use for external links
• User Tracking Breakdown; None, Guests & Members or Individual Usergroups (Doesn't work with "Universal Analytics")
• Compatibility with the new "Universal Analytics" from Google Analytics (Experimental)
• Should not be enabled unless you're sure you need it
• Future-proof as all future profiles will be switched over to this format

Dynamic Meta Tags

• Meta Keywords
  • Forums
  • Threads
  • Posts
  • Member Profiles
  • Blogs
• Meta Description
  • Forums
  • Threads
  • Posts
  • Member Profiles
  • Blogs
• Meta Description Length
• Member Profile Meta Description

External Link Handling

• Add "nofollow" to external URLs
• Anonymise external urls, stops sites seeing what threads the clicks came from
• Excluded Forums
• Domain Whitelist
• Domain Blacklist

Stopwords

• Remove Stopwords: Yes, No, Only on long URLs
• Stopword List

General URL Rewrite Settings

• URL Part Separator: -, _ or .
• Maximum URL Keywords
• Filter Non-Latin Characters
• Custom Character Filter
• Enable UTF-8
• Force Forum Directory Index
• Filter Tag URLs
• Rewrite Emails
• Add "Canonical URL" Tag
• "Nav Bullet" Prefix
• Avatar Prefix
• Attachment Prefix

Forum URLs

• Define "[forum_path]"
• Rewrite Forum URLs
• Forum URLs
• Forum Pagination URLs
• Rewrite Announcement URLs
• Announcement URLs
• Multiple Announcements URL
• Rewrite Thread URLs
• Thread URL
• Thread Pagination URL
• Thread Last Post URL
• Thread New Post URL
• Thread Go To Post URL
• Thread Go To Post (Paged) URL
• Previous Thread URL
• Next Thread URL
• Rewrite Printer-Friendly Thread URLs
• Printer-Friendly Thread URLs
• Printer-Friendly Thread (Paged) URLs
• Rewrite "Show Post" URLs
• Show Post URLs
• Rewrite "Poll" URLs
• Poll URLs
• Rewrite "Member List" URLs
• Member List URLs
• Member List (Paged) URLs
• Member List (Letter) URLs
• Rewrite "Avatar" URLs
• Avatar URL
• Rewrite "Nav Bullet" URLs
• "Nav Bullet" Prefix
• Nav Bullet (Forum) URLs
• Nav Bullet (Thread) URLs
• Rewrite Attachment URLs
• Attachment URLs
• Rewrite "Attachment Alt Attribute"
• Attachment Alt Attribute
• Rewrite "Tag" URLs
• Tag List URLs
• Tag (Single) URLs
• Tag (Single) Paged URLs

vB CMS URLs (vB4-Only)

• Rewrite CMS URLs
• CMS Home URL
• CMS Section URL
• CMS Section Article List URL
• CMS Section Article List (Paged) URL
• CMS Category URL
• CMS Category (Paged) URL
• CMS Author URL
• CMS Author (Paged) URL
• CMS Entry URL
• CMS Entry (Paged) URL
• CMS Comments (Paged) URL
• CMS Attachments URL

Blog URLs

• Rewrite Blog URLs
• Blogs URL
• Blog URL
• Blog (Paged) URL
• Rewrite Blog Entry URLs
• Blog Entry URL
• Blog Entry (Paged) URL
• Blog Comment URL
• Next Blog Entry URL
• Previous Blog Entry URL
• Rewrite Blog Custom Pages
• Blog Custom Page URL
• Rewrite Blog Category URLs
• Blog Global Category URL
• Blog Global Category (Paged) URL
• Blog Category URL
• Blog Category (Paged) URL
• Rewrite Blog Attachment URLs
• Blog Attachment URL
• Rewrite Blog Feed URLs
• Blog Feed (User) URL
• Blog Feed (Global) URL
• Rewrite Blog List URLs
• "Blogs By Day" List (User) URL
• "Blogs By Day" List (Global) URL
• "Blogs By Day" List (Global, Paged) URL
• "Blogs By Month" List (User) URL
• "Blogs By Month" List (Global) URL
• "Blogs By Month" List (Global, Paged) URL
• "All Blog Entries" List URL
• "All Blog Entries" List (Paged) URL
• "Recent Blog Entries" List URL
• "Recent Blog Entries" List (Paged) URL
• "Latest Blog Entries" List URL
• "Latest Blog Entries" List (Paged) URL
• "Best Blog Entries" List URL
• "Best Blog Entries" List (Paged) URL
• "Best Blogs" List URL
• "Best Blogs" List (Paged) URL
• "Blog Comments" List URL
• "Blog Comments" List (Paged) URL
• Rewrite Blog Tag URLs
• Blog Tags Home URL
• Blog Tag List URL
• Blog Tag List (Paged) URL

Social Group URLs

• Rewrite Social Group URLs
• Social Group Home URL
• Social Group List URL
• Social Group List (Paged) URL
• Social Group URL
• Social Group (Paged) URL
• Social Group Discussion URL
• Social Group Discussion (Paged) URL
• Social Group Discussion (Last Post) URL
• Social Group Members URL
• Social Group Members (Paged) URL
• Social Group Pictures URL
• Social Group Pictures (Paged) URL
• Social Group Picture URL
• Social Group Picture (Paged) URL
• Social Group Picture File URL
• Social Group Category List URL
• Social Group Category List (Paged) URL
• Social Group Category URL
• Social Group Category (Paged) URL

Member Profile URLs

• Rewrite Member Profile URLs
• Member Profile URL
• Visitor Messages (Paged) URL
• Visitor Messages Conversation URL
• Visitor Messages Conversation (Paged) URL
• Friends List (Paged) URL
• Rewrite Member Album URLs
• Member Albums URL
• Member Albums (Paged) URL
• Album List URL
• Album List (Paged) URL
• Album URL
• Album (Paged) URL
• Album Picture URL
• Album Picture (Paged) URL
• Album Picture File URL

URL Rewrite History

• Change your URL Rewrite Rules without losing ranking
• Checks for old URL formats only if no matches are made to existing formats
• Stores only one copy of each old URL format for maximum database efficiency
• Results are cached in the Datastore for maximum performance

Social Sharing Settings

• Global on/off
• Publisher ID
• Enable Facebook
• Enable Twitter
• Enable Google+
• Enable Reddit
• Enable Pinterest
• Enable LinkedIn
• Usergroup Permissions

Social Sharing Page Settings

• Thread: Above Post List
• Thread: Below Post List
• Thread: Post Content
• Blog: Above Blog Entry
• Blog: Below Blog Entry
• Blog: Comment Content
• Social Group: Above Message List
• Social Group: Below Message List
• Social Group: Message Content

Social Sharing Button Display Styles

• Horizontal (With Count)
• Horizontal (Big Buttons, No Count)
• Horizontal (Small Buttons, No Count)
• Vertical (With Count)
• Vertical (Big Buttons, No Count)
• Vertical (Small Buttons, No Count)

AddOn Support

• Allows other modifications to add their own rewrite rules / sitemap integration
• Powers our front page & product info pages
• Content-powered DBTech modification support coming

3rd Party Extension Support

• Allows additional tracking of sitemap views or rewriting sitemap files
• Allows adding additional search engines to submit to, or changing the sitemap filenames
• Allows modifying the starting content ID for each content type
• Allows modifying the keywords and descriptions used for Meta Tag replacements

Automatic Sitemap Generation

• Set a time of day for sitemap generation
• Lets you target sitemap generation for the time of day your forum is less active
• Improves reliability of sitemap generation

General / Other

• Global Option: Enable "DragonByte SEO AdminCP" Footer Link
• General Settings: Link Titles: External URLs - Limit
• DBSEO CP Quick Link: Return to vB AdminCP

Complete Feature List (Pro)

Content-Aware SEO Titles

• Ability to generate SEO titles from the content based on defined keywords
• Keywords can have 3 different levels of priority; Low, Medium and High
• Higher priority keywords get added first
• Threads, CMS Entry and Blog Entry supported
• Scans every word in the page text for the keywords

Custom Sitemap URLs

• Allows for custom pages to be included in a sitemap
• Import multiple URLs and set default Update Frequency, Priority Range and Last Updated
• Add single new sitemap URL
• Browse all URLs in the sitemap, with search parameters
• Edit / Delete individual URLs
• Set a path to a file that is automatically imported on sitemap generation
• Default priority option
• Default frequency option
• Prune Custom Sitemap URL table

Log Controls

• Ability to turn off Sitemap Hit tracking
• Ability to turn off Spider Hit tracking
• Saves database space for large forums

Sitemap Hit Log

• Tracks all spiders accessing your Sitemaps
• Stores time, spider identification, full user agent, ip address and sitemap file accessed
• Browseable log with date range options
• Automatic prune after X days (default: 90)

Spider Hit Log

• Tracks all spiders accessing your forum
• Stores a daily log of what scripts the spiders accessed, and how many times they accessed that script
• Browseable log with date range options
• Automatic prune after X days (default: 90)

General Settings

• Custom Rewrite Rules
• Custom Redirects

URL Rewrite Rules

• Customise any of the Forum URLs, vB CMS URLs (vB4-Only), Blog URLs, Social Group URLs, Member Profile URLs
• Custom CMS Domain
• Custom Blog Domain

vBSEO Importer

• Transfers equivalent settings from vBSEO
• Ensures smooth transition from vBSEO
• Safety precautions to ensure settings are only overwritten if you explicitly tick Yes

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This mod displays a copyright notification in the footer of all pages, which includes:

• 1 Link to DragonByte Technologies homepage
• 1 Link to Product Description page of this modification

[ForceHSS]

Originally Posted by Marv

Filip, give that man a cookie
Purchased the pro this morning. But is there a step-by-step tutorial available for those switching from vbseo to dbseo? Sounds silly, but I?m a little bit afraid of breaking the whole site. Do I have to deactivate vbseo before importing and activating the dbseo plugin? The readme.txt is a little short on informations about that :erm:

talk to the devs on their site they will install it for you if you are not sure what to do

[Marv]

Thanks for the hint. WILCO.

[Alan_SP]

Actually, I really think that it would be great if there's is how-to guide for switching from vBSEO to DBSEO. For free and for paid version.

I know there's importer in pro version and also that it could be done (up to some level) with free version (given here also), but there are some steps that we should follow, like disabling mod, editing .htaccess file, uninstalling.

If DBTech would post it in first post here and make it sticky on DBTech's site, it would be really appreciated.

There's a lot of us with vBSEO and speaking for myself, I'm planning to switch to DBSEO in one moment or another. Guide like this certainly would ease many of my worries and speed that process up. At least for me.

[DragonByte Tech]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo.

how to disable the automatic generation of keywords in posts / ????

Originally Posted by Princeton

Great software - moving away from VBSEO was easy as pie

Support is fantastic. Very open to making improvements.

Thank you for your kind words, Joe

Originally Posted by Marv

Filip, give that man a cookie
Purchased the pro this morning. But is there a step-by-step tutorial available for those switching from vbseo to dbseo? Sounds silly, but I?m a little bit afraid of breaking the whole site. Do I have to deactivate vbseo before importing and activating the dbseo plugin? The readme.txt is a little short on informations about that :erm:

Originally Posted by Alan_SP

Actually, I really think that it would be great if there's is how-to guide for switching from vBSEO to DBSEO. For free and for paid version.

I know there's importer in pro version and also that it could be done (up to some level) with free version (given here also), but there are some steps that we should follow, like disabling mod, editing .htaccess file, uninstalling.

If DBTech would post it in first post here and make it sticky on DBTech's site, it would be really appreciated.

There's a lot of us with vBSEO and speaking for myself, I'm planning to switch to DBSEO in one moment or another. Guide like this certainly would ease many of my worries and speed that process up. At least for me.

I hear you both, and in the next version, the Pro version will come with a dedicated readme.txt file with the step-by-step instructions for how to import from vBSEO to DBSEO.

For reference, I'll post the instructions here, even though the Lite version is lacking the vBSEO Importer step:

1. Upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum root

2. Open the .htaccess file in a FXP editor, comment out the vBSEO entries and add the DBSEO entries as per the readme.txt file, but not saving the file just yet

3. Disable vBSEO from the vBulletin Products & Plugins

4. Disable vBSEO Sitemap Generator from vBulletin Products & Plugins

5. Import the DBSEO product

6. Enter the DBSEO Control Panel via the ACP side menu link, click vBSEO Import and wait for it to complete

7. Save the .htaccess file edit from the FXP editor

8. Confirm that Forum Home, Forum Display and Show Thread pages load as intended

9. Chmod the ./store_sitemap folder to 077

10. Enter the DBSEO Control Panel via the ACP side menu link, click Sitemap Settings and enable sitemap generation

11. Click the Build Sitemap link and wait for it to complete



Fillip

[Marv]

Originally Posted by DragonByte Tech

Thank you for your kind words, Joe


I hear you both, and in the next version, the Pro version will come with a dedicated readme.txt file with the step-by-step instructions for how to import from vBSEO to DBSEO.

For reference, I'll post the instructions here, even though the Lite version is lacking the vBSEO Importer step:

1. Upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum root

2. Open the .htaccess file in a FXP editor, comment out the vBSEO entries and add the DBSEO entries as per the readme.txt file, but not saving the file just yet

3. Disable vBSEO from the vBulletin Products & Plugins

4. Disable vBSEO Sitemap Generator from vBulletin Products & Plugins

5. Import the DBSEO product

6. Enter the DBSEO Control Panel via the ACP side menu link, click vBSEO Import and wait for it to complete

7. Save the .htaccess file edit from the FXP editor

8. Confirm that Forum Home, Forum Display and Show Thread pages load as intended

9. Chmod the ./store_sitemap folder to 077

10. Enter the DBSEO Control Panel via the ACP side menu link, click Sitemap Settings and enable sitemap generation

11. Click the Build Sitemap link and wait for it to complete



Fillip

That would be a good addition, Fillip. Unfortunal I'll have to check back with you guys tomorrow since the importer run into some problems on my site and I had to go back to vbSEO for now cause wether the 301s nor the start or forum pages were reachable through SE results.

For now: is DBSEO supporting the showthread rewrite as [tld.com]/[threadID]-[threadtitle].html ? That's the format we use now for about 10 yrs and DBSEO doesn't seem to support that without a forumID or title. May be I'm actual suffering a temporarly blindness but I haven't found a setting for that.

[DragonByte Tech]

I don't see a reason why DBSEO wouldn't allow you to have such a format.

If you PM me @ dragonbyte-tech.com with FTP and AdminCP information I can look into it for you. Please supply the details of what URL formats are not displaying as intended (include all of them, if you know of more than just that one) and I'll resolve it


Fillip

[Marv]

Great, I'll hit you back tomorrow morning at dbtech. May be I'm just barking at the wrong tree, regarding the settings.

:up:

[Marv]

I recommend to test the migration from vbseo to dbseo on a testserver. I haven´t and - due to custom settings and I guess own misconfigs - my site crashed. My fault (!) and I have to wait for DBTech to have a look at it.

Don´t make that mistake, too.

[Marv]

About to bite my ass that I´ve tried to switch. Half site broken, can´t revert to vbseo, still waiting guess til hell freezes. Fed up for today.

[DragonByte Tech]

Originally Posted by Marv

About to bite my ass that I?ve tried to switch. Half site broken, can?t revert to vbseo, still waiting guess til hell freezes. Fed up for today.

Still waiting for you to supply me with the information I requested 22 hours ago


Fillip