Mini Mods - Redirect Archive Search Engine Results To Full Forum

Another plugin that came about due to my own personal needs and which I thought I'd share.


Description:

What this does is hooks into the top of your forum's archive script (ex: this forum's archive) and checks the referrer that the user's browser sends. If it's from Google, Yahoo, or MSN searches, then it redirects to the full version of the index/forum/thread/whatever.

This is needed (IMO) since the search engines crawl that archive and very often show links to it in search results. However, it's rather ugly and has no reply box, etc. etc., so incoming users shouldn't be seeing it.

This plugin does not block access to the archive though. If you click the archive link in your footer or manually type in the URL to it, you won't notice any difference.


Installation:

Download and install the attached product. It's just a single plugin, but products are more powerful, so I thought I'd wrap it into a whole product.


How do I know if it's working right?

Go to Google and type this into the search box:

site:http://yoursite.com/forum/archive/

That will bring up a list of links to pages in your archive. When you click on one, your forum should redirect you from the archives to the main forum.


It's still not working right!

Reply to this thread and let me know. I may need to slightly adjust the checks to see if you're coming from a search engine or not.

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DON'T FORGET TO CLICK INSTALL!


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[WritersBeat]

This kind of defeats the purpose of the archive. The archive allows search engines to spider and index your site a lot easier. There fore bringing you more traffic.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by WritersBeat

This kind of defeats the purpose of the archive. The archive allows search engines to spider and index your site a lot easier. There fore bringing you more traffic.

That's exactly why I have the archive enabled and why this plugin doesn't affect spiders or anyone accessing it directly. It only affects people who enter into the archive coming from a search engine (i.e. they search for something and are presented with a link to your archive).

[EasyTarget]

great idea.. probably helps a lot with guest to member conversion in such instances.

[Viper007Bond]

Yeah, many times I have Googled for something only to be presented with the archive view of a thread from some forum which can be quite confusing for the novice user.

[MillerLight]

Thanks Viper!

Installed

[projectego]

Nice idea, cheers!

[high]* projectego clicks install[/high]

[RaZor Edge]

Great! This is a really great idea! Install!

[993ti]

Nice one
Works great
Another method to try it is to use site:www.yourdomain/archive in google which shows the archive pages indexed.
Click a few

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by 993ti

Another method to try it is to use site:www.yourdomain/archive in google which shows the archive pages indexed.

Yeah, I remembered that after I made my test script. I'll go change my post.