SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

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Discuss features as they are added to the new version. Give us your feedback. Don't post bug reports, feature requests, support questions or suggestions here. Feature requests are closed.
mip
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Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:44 pm

SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by mip »

Hi @ll,

I wonder if phpBB Olympus will get a design which allows easy rewriting of URLs for SEO.
At this time, I'm missing the append_sid() function (or something similar) from the phpBB 2.0 versions.

In current CVS, there are plenty of hardcoded URLs looking like index.$phpEx$SID and even worse ones like "{$phpbb_root_path}memberlist.$phpEx$SID&mode=searchuser&form=post&field=username_list".

That's a step backwards compared to phpBB 2.0.x where we could send URLs through the append_sid() wrapper function for easy rewriting. This wasn't the perfect solution, because URLs had to be "parsed" with some regex, but it did the job.

In current phpBB CVS, most URLs get assigned via assign_vars() and similiar functions from the template class.
We could use this for URL rewriting, but this doesn't look like a clean implementation (URL template vars could be identified by their commmon U_ prefix, providing the naming scheme is consistent).

What do you think?

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A_Jelly_Doughnut
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by A_Jelly_Doughnut »

The developers probably decided append_sid() was un-needed. For one, sticking in $SID is shorter than typing append_sid(). Second, $SID is probably a couple microseconds faster.

Further, append_sid() was never meant to be used for SEO. That shouldn't have been in consideration when it was removed.

As for "fixing" this, wait and see if it is needed. Google absolutely eats up Area51.phpbb.com.
A_Jelly_Doughnut

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SHS`
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by SHS` »

A_Jelly_Doughnut wrote: As for "fixing" this, wait and see if it is needed. Google absolutely eats up Area51.phpbb.com.
Wait and see? Google indexes these forums quite well already...
[url=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=viewtopic.php+site%3Aarea51.phpbb.com] Google[/url] wrote: Results 1 - 10 of about 23,200 from area51.phpbb.com for viewtopic.php. (0.51 seconds)
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mip
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by mip »

SHS` wrote: Wait and see? Google indexes these forums quite well already.
Accomplishing a thorough bot index/walk-through is only one part of SEO... ;)

Roberdin
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by Roberdin »

What else?
Rob

mip
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by mip »

Roberdin wrote: What else?
It's quite useless to get indexed, when your ranking is too bad to get found by the search engine users.
There's much to say about SEO and "clean" URLs (no GET parameters) are a starting point.

DeadEye686
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by DeadEye686 »

Perhaps I'm missing something, but in order for a forum solution to work without GETs, dependence on a particular webserver would be required, would it not? For example, this is fairly simple to do with mod_rewrite in Apache, but I don't know of a way for forum/4/" target="_blank to pass the 4 variable onto a PHP script in, say, IIS. I must be missing something :P

mip
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by mip »

Apache and its URL rewriting engine is by far the most popular one, but URL rewriting isn't limited to Apache. I'm sure that every major webserver could at least pass every request to a script which would parse the path-info and handle it over to the target script.
BTW: Have a look at the current phpBB Olympus CVS, note the .htaccess files there and you see that the developers currently do count on Apache httpd.

But Apache or any other httpd is not the point.

I only wanted to express that IMO all those hardcoded URLs are a design flaw in phpBB CVS and not including at least a wrapper function around them is nearsighted.

Graham
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by Graham »

Actually, .htaccess files are valid on more than just Apache.

Anyway, IMO so called SEO is not the be all and end all of a forum - if you are worried about it, a better way to increase your "ranking" on a search is to have some content on the site. Adding redundant wrapper functions for the very small minority who feel that rewriting the URI make a difference would impact the performance for the majority of users. As others have pointed out, search engines index this site quite sucessfully without any changes.
"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

Graham
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DeadEye686
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Re: SEO - missing append_sid() functionality

Post by DeadEye686 »

I've never had a problem with SE rankings on my installations with phpBB - on the largest site I run, we're the #1 result for our keywords in all major search engines. Indexed perfectly on those that do too. *shrug*

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