phpBB Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

[ccb056]

This guide is an attempt to be the definitive guide for optimizing the Free Forum/Bulletin Board System phpBB. phpBB is a free forum that is powered by MySQL and PHP. The major drawback with this is that phpBB uses dynamic url's, and more specifically session id's (SIDs). Another drawback of phpBB which makes it search engine unfriendly is its linking structure. To put it nicely, phpBB has a poor default linking structure. Also, the default phpBB leaves too much "garbage text" for visitors which detracts from the actual content posted in the forum.

This guide will go through each one of these MAJOR drawback of the phpBB forum and attempt to make it more search engine friendly. However, please take note, no matter how search engine friendly your phpBB forum is you need content, and lots of content. To get content, you need users, posting and participating users. But to get users, you need publicity and good search engine optimization. See the circle that's forming? It's sort of a Catch-22 if you read the book.

Ok, on to topic 01: Dynamic URLs
I like starting off with examples, so here we go
Dynamic URL: http://www.domain.com/foo=123&abc?45615 ... 231546.php
and the opposite of a Dynamic URL is a Static URL
Static URL: http://www.domain.com/foo/123/abc.html

As you can see, the bottom example, the Static URL, is much nicer not only for humans, but for all search engines. Some search engines can crawl Dynamic URLs, but only to a certain extent. Search engines rank static urls higher than dynamic URLs. One way to change Dynamic URLs to Static URLs is to use apache's mod_rewrite. You can do this using the following code:

Code: Select all

############################################################## 
## MOD Title: phpBB static URLs mod_rewrite 1.0.0
## MOD Author: Craven de Kere (N/A) http://www.Able2Know.com 
## MOD Description: This mod should be added AFTER the Able2Know.com SEO mod 
## This mod makes static URLs (only for guests) for phpBB, for example topic-22234.html 
## Please read the author notes BEFORE using this mod.
## Check http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html
## for the latest version or to get help with this MOD 
## 
## MOD Version: 1.0.0 
## 
## Installation Level: (Advanced) 
## Installation Time: 5 Minutes 
## Files To Edit: page_header.php,
## Included Files: n/a 
##############################################################  
## Author Notes: 
## Use this mod together with the Able2Know.com SEO Mod (http://www.able2know.com/forums/about15132.html)  
## Make backups and test this on a test forum if you can. This is not a typical mod.
## For an additional tutorial on preventing IP addresses from being logged see:
## http://www.able2know.com/forums/about22586.html
## 
############################################################## 
## MOD History: 
## 
##   2004-04-10 - Version 1.0.0 
##      - Initial public release.
## 
############################################################## 
## Before Adding This MOD To Your Forum, You Should Back Up All Files Related To This MOD 
##############################################################


# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

includes/page_header.php 

# 
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

// 
// Generate logged in/logged out status 
// 

# 
#-----[ AFTER, ADD  ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

if ( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] )
{
ob_start(); 
function replace_for_mod_rewrite(&$s) 
{ 
$urlin = 
array( 
"'(?<!/)viewforum.php\?f=([0-9]*)&topicdays=([0-9]*)&start=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewforum.php\?f=([0-9]*)&mark=topics'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&watch=topic*'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&unwatch=topic*'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&highlight=*'",
"'(?<!/)viewforum.php\?f=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&view=previous'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&view=next'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&postdays=([0-9]*)&postorder=([a-zA-Z]*)&vote=viewresult'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&postdays=([0-9]*)&postorder=([a-zA-Z]*)&start=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&start=([0-9]*)&postdays=([0-9]*)&postorder=([a-zA-Z]*)&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)&start=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?t=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php&p=([0-9]*)'", 
"'(?<!/)viewtopic.php\?p=([0-9]*)'", 
); 
$urlout = array( 
"topic-\\1-\\2-\\3.html", 
"mark-forum\\1.html", 
"updates-topic\\1.html", 
"stop-updates-topic\\1.html", 
"about\\1.html&highlight=\\2", 
"forum-\\1.html", 
"ptopic\\1.html", 
"ntopic\\1.html", 
"view-poll\\1-\\2-\\3.html", 
"about\\1-\\2-\\3-\\4.html", 
"about\\1.html", 
"about\\1-\\2.html", 
"about\\1.html", 
"post-\\1.html", 
"post-\\1.html", 
); 
$s = preg_replace($urlin, $urlout, $s); 
return $s; 
} 
}

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

includes/page_tail.php 

# 
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

$db->sql_close(); 

# 
#-----[ AFTER, ADD  ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

if ( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] )
{
$contents = ob_get_contents(); 
ob_end_clean(); 
echo replace_for_mod_rewrite($contents); 
global $dbg_starttime; 
}

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

.htaccess 

# 
#-----[ ADD  ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) post-.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* post-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) about.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest about.html$1&view=newest [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&start=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).* about.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html about.html$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^mark-forum([0-9]*).html* forum-.html$1&mark=topics [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&watch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^stop-updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&unwatch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).html forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=next [L,NC]


# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

robots.txt 

Disallow: forums/post-*.html$ 
Disallow: forums/updates-topic.html*$ 
Disallow: forums/stop-updates-topic.html*$ 
Disallow: forums/ptopic*.html$ 
Disallow: forums/ntopic*.html$ 

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

includes/functions.php 

# 
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

if (!empty($db)) 
{ 
     $db->sql_close(); 
} 

# 
#-----[ AFTER, ADD  ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

if ( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] )
{
if (stristr($url, 'http://')) { 
  header('Location: ' . $url); 
  exit; 
} 
}

# 
#-----[ SAVE/CLOSE ALL FILES ]------------------------------------------ 
# 
# EoM 

Ok, on to topic 02: Sessions IDs (SIDs)
Here are examples of a phpBB forum with and without Session IDs (SIDs)
phpBB forum with SIDs: forum-14.html&sid=4aa4bf80801a783f320ffe34a813de55
phpBB forum without SIDs: /phpBB/viewforum.php?f=14

As you can see, without the Session IDs (SIDs) the url is MUCH cleaner. The most important part to making your phpBB forum search engine optimized and spider crawable is to remove these Session IDs for guests browsing the forum. If you do not remove the Session IDs for guests, then googlebot (google's spider crawler) will not crawl your forum past the front page. The best way to remove session IDs for guests on a phpBB forum is to use the following code:

Code: Select all

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

includes/sessions.php 

# 
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

$SID = 'sid=' . $session_id; 

# 
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

if ( $userdata['session_user_id'] != ANONYMOUS ){ 
   $SID = 'sid=' . $session_id; 
} else { 
   $SID = ''; 
} 

Ok, on to topic 03: phpBB Internal Linking Structure
The linking structure of any website is not only vital for visitors, but also for search engine spiders. If you have poor linking structure (like phpBB) or worse, no linking structure, then not only will the visitors not be able to browser, neither will the spiders. So, the question is, what contributes to a good linking structure. Well, there are two main types of links. They are inbound and outbound links. As you can probable guess, inbound links point from someone else's site to your site. Outbound links point from your site to someone else's. There is also the question of internal linking. Internal linking is when you link to your pages within pages of your site.

Inbound Linking is important. It is through inbound linking that you gain the Google PageRank. There is a mathematical formula for calculating the Google Pagerank, but to put it simply, if you have many pages linking to a certain page of your site, they all give some pagerank to that one site. The higher the pagerank of the site with the link to your page, the higher your pagerank will become. The more inbound links you have to a certain page, the higher that pagerank will become. Pagerank is not the same throughout a website. Pagerank changes on every single page. Generally, the top level page has the highest pagerank because most of the links point to the front page, the subpages usually decrease in pagerank by increments of one. Outbound links do not decrease the pagerank of the page they are on, rather they decrease the amount of pagerank that is given to other pages that the page links to. It is generally accpeted to not have more than thirty outbound links on one page.

One way to increase the Pagerank of your forums is to participate in a link exchange with other forums. This link exchange will not only bring more users to your site, but it will also increase your pagerank and thus search engine placement. Rememmber, when linking to your site, use certain target keywords because google places some emphasis on the anchor text on inbound links. Another way to increase inbound links and thus Pagerank for forums is by submitting to directories. DMOZ and Yahoo are the two main directories, however, there are many more directories that your can get your phpBB forum listed in. An interesting concept that I picked up is the process of going to google and seeing who links to your competition. you can do this by typing this query in google:

link:www.mycompetition.com

Most likely, if someone is willing to link to your competition, they will be willing to link to you.

Internal linking is important for phpBB forums. There are three steps to take to obtain optimum internal linking structure. The first way is to add a "Most Recent Topics" modification to your front page. This modification will provide links from the front page to 15 or more topics embedded in your forum bypassing the loss of one pagerank. Another modification to make involves placing a "Similiar Topics" modification at the bottom of every thread. This links to other threads/topics that are similiar to the topic that the user/search engine is viewing. This is a very optimal transfer of pagerank. The third way to increase internal linking on phpBB forums is to manually add each one of the forum title's and urls to the header. This will allow every page of your site to link to all of the forums. This increases pagerank for each forum, which increases pagerank for each thread, which places each thread higher in search engine results.

Ok, topic 04: Garbage Text Removal for guests on phpBB forums
Lets face it, on the default board, there is too much garbage text that the guest see's compared to the content. Having garbage text on your site doesn't help your search engine placement. This garbage text only detracts from the content of the threads and post, but it also wastes bandwidth. Along with garbage text, is garbage images, and links. What you want to do is limit the un-registered user to the bare minimum, that's each thread's content. As one of my favorite sayings goes: Leave Out The Unnecessary Stuff (LOTUS). You are probably asking how are you supposed to limit the amount of garbage the unregistered forum browser gets. Well, phpBB has made it very simple. They have two tags which you can place in the template (.tpl) files. They are:

Code: Select all

<!-- BEGIN switch_user_logged_in -->

and

Code: Select all

<!-- END switch_user_logged_in -->

You place those two lines of code around stuff you don't want guests seeing (almost everything). This will cut down one bandwdith and increase useful content to space ratios. These ratios determine how high you rank on search engines for certain terms. An example of this code being used is as follows:

viewforum_body.tpl

Code: Select all

<!-- BEGIN switch_user_logged_in -->
<td><a href="{U_POST_NEW_TOPIC}"><img src="{POST_IMG}" alt="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" title="{L_POST_NEW_TOPIC}" /></a></td>
<!-- END switch_user_logged_in -->

This code will remove the "post new topic" image and link from each one of your forum bodies for guests. The button will, however appear for users which are logged on. I have implemeted this strategy on these forums for the FAQ, Search, Memberlist, Usergroups, Profile, Private Messages, Post New Topic, Reply to Topic, You can post reply moderate,
pictures of different posts at the bottom of viewtopic, mark topics, Moderators, browsing users, View Unanswered Posts.

This makes the forums look much cleaner to users and search engine robots and costs you less money for bandwidth.

Overall, if you follow the basic guidelines listed above, post good quality content at least once a day in each forum category, and include some other mods you can think of, you will have a very successfull forum. A modification that I highly recomend is this.

[ponpots]

Thank you very much...I 've been looking for this information because i'm building a forum soon. What is the best forum.....????

[ccb056]

I like phpbb alot, but its all a matter of preference

[caspita]

I was looking for ideas for SEO my phpbb forum and I ended up here ;-) .. you have a real good advice here, but I have some questions about your ideas:

- Why do you exclude that many pages from being indexed.. like the previous and next topic? are not those helping with the linking structure?

- Don't you think it would be better just remove the session Id for the spiders? let's the anonymus user be able to post to. Does it hurt in your opinion?

caspita

[sniffer99]

This did not work for me...

Code: Select all

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

.htaccess 

# 
#-----[ ADD  ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) post-.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* post-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) about.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest about.html$1&view=newest [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&start=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).* about.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html about.html$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^mark-forum([0-9]*).html* forum-.html$1&mark=topics [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&watch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^stop-updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&unwatch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).html forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=next [L,NC]

.... However, going to the site of the Author of this MOD, he is recommending this...

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?p=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?p=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?t=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=newest [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^mark-forum([0-9]*).html* viewforum.php?f=$1&mark=topics [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^updates-topic([0-9]*).html* viewtopic.php?t=$1&watch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^stop-updates-topic([0-9]*).html* viewtopic.php?t=$1&unwatch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).html viewforum.php?f=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).* viewforum.php?f=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewforum.php?f=$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=next [L,NC]

...and this DOES work for me!

-Nuttzy

[majjk99]

Hi, I'm using phpbb 2.0.11, the same version as the author. However, all I get is 404 Not Found when trying to browse the forum. I tried both versions of .htaccess, but same result. Also, I have tested if I have got mod_rewrite enabled on my server, so that isn't the problem. Any ideas? Have the author by any chance upgraded to 2.0.11 after he wrote this (i.e. this mod doesn't work for 2.0.11)?

Regards

majjk

[ccb056]

I am using the mod and am using phpbb 2.0.11

http://www.able2know.com is the actual author, i am just relaying the information

[celcom]

This seo seen doesn't work very well .
site:www.computerbb.org
all is link without content compare to site:www.vbulletin.com or .nl most with link + content

[mortgage-pro-seo]

I am not sure why both of the prevous mod_rewrites were not working for me. This is code I downloaded from the able2know site and it does work!

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) post-.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* post-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) about.html$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest about.html$1&view=newest [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* about.html$1&start=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).* about.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html about.html$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^mark-forum([0-9]*).html* forum-.html$1&mark=topics [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&watch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^stop-updates-topic([0-9]*).html* about.html$1&unwatch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).html forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* forum-.html$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* about.html$1&view=next [L,NC]

[HostMySite]

I've attempted to add in the mod_rewrite exactly as is posted above on my companies phpbb forum. However, it resultsin 404 error pages if you are NOT logged in to the forums. If you are logged in it works like a charm. I'm trying to figure out what I may have done wrong, and have gone through the steps 3 times now, each time resulting in the same issue. If someone could please point me in the correct direction I would be most appreciative. I have tried both versions of the htaccess edits as posted above and the 404 errors still continue. You can see the testing forum here:

forums2.hostmysite.com

any help on this issue would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you in advance.

-Darrell Louder
HostMySite.com

[Ruick]

i applied this mod, and after adding the page_header and tail files - i automatically get vdeck 404 errors when trying to click on one of my forums ie. general discussion. Basically it cant locate the http://www.webdevforum.net/forum4.etc etc How can i fix this? (http://www.webdevforum.net is my site)

[jsweb]

Hello, I applied this mod and everything worked great...except that my users are unable to login or logout. I get a "page not found" error. I think the problem comes from my useage of a custom template instead of the default template. There were a few lines of code regarding logging in and out that were different than called for in the mod, and I think that is it, but I can't figure it out. Can you help? See the site at cancun-discounts.com/boards/

[jhails]

I applied this mod to my old phpbb 2.0.8 and it worked great, I have just installed 2.0.17 on another site and would like to apply this mod to that forum... Anyone apply this mod to the new phpbb 2.0.17 and have it work okay...

[mishiwinks]

Ok... i am on step one and have changed everything with the exception of robots.txt- I can not find this. It is not in the main directory, pub html or the phpbb. Someone help!!!!!!!!!!! I am working with 2.0.17 as well. So I will let you know how it goes... not so good so far ;-}

[jhails]

robots.text is just a text file that you place in your root directory... You have to create it with a text editor like notpad and just copy it to your website

[mishiwinks]

Ok... I just saw in another thread that you needed to create the robots.txt file, so I did that. Just thought I would update in case someone else is having the same problem. Thanks guys!!!!

[mishiwinks]

Hey thanks J, didnt see your comment until after I posted, lol! But I have a huge issue because now when i go on the board it loads the first page but wont display any threads. It shows a page can not be displayed. I put the security on there so that you have to be logged in to view the pages, and I think that is what is causing this, because when I log in they come up. However I dont want it to go to page can not be displayed, I would rather it redirect them to login page. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks in advance, I dont know what I would do without you guys!

[jhails]

Is your forum that private that you don't want anyone to browse it without logging in.. If you have to log in to browse the forum, why did you apply this mod to it? The search engines can't log in so they won't be able to browse throught the posts. Pretty self-defeating... You've got me confused... Warm Regards Jack

[mishiwinks]

I didn't set it up to have to log in to browse... I set it up to have to log in to post. The only changes I made were the ones on this page. However now if you arent logged in it gives you a cant display page error. I don't know why. Does this make sense? lol

[erolz]

Just wanted to say thanks for this guide. Very informative and useful. Thanks

[j600.com]

Hi guys, I have a forum (j600.com/forums) and would like to make it search engine friendly. I have read what you wrote above but i have no idea where to put that code and how to add it to my website. is there anyway you could sort of give me an idiots guide to adding this content. do i do it via dreamweaver and upload with ftp? or do i log into my forum and go in via the admin section?? i really really dont have a clue any help would be good regards tim