Is PhpBB3 SEO Friendly?

[NovaArgon]

I know phpbb2 wasn't but what about 3?

if its not do you have any idea how much it would cost to have it done by a pro?

Thanks

 

[SyntauX]

It is SEO friendly, even more so than phpBB2. I don't think you'd need a pro to do SEO, there is an excellent and well supported mod that allows all your URLs to be static HTML links. This and posting on your forum will easily get you started. Any other SEO tricks can be picked up along or simply by reading up how Google, Yahoo and MSN work. Knowing the technology behind it all will help immensly.

Of course if you don't have the time too then your option is best.

To keep it short - phpBB3 is SEO friendly.

 

[NovaArgon]

Thanks yea I have time I guess I'll look into that mod.

 

[motokochan]

You don't need static URLs to be considered friendly to SEO. It is quite possible to never touch that and get high rankings.

 

[NovaArgon]

I haven't read everything yet but I came across this mod.

http://www.phpbb.com/mods/db/index.php?i=misc&mode=display&contrib_id=3224

and I was going to try and install it if it would help any.

I think I found a post here that said this mod doesn't really make that much difference. If thats the case I had rather not install it because the guys at phpbb update the forums all the time I if your not good at modding the forum you will lose all your mods ever time they update.

 

[motokochan]

That probably won't help. It has been studied and found by multiple people that there is little to no benefit to keyword-rich URLs.

 

[NovaArgon]

I may just be confused but not so much keywords as the link not having any random symbols in it. This is whats got me thinking that I need to have static links.

Design and content guidelines

* Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
* Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
* Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
* Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
* Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
* Check for broken links and correct HTML.
* If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

Full copy from Google support

Now I have also read in a number of other places that it doesn't matter. I don't know very much one way or the other but seeing as how I don't know how to install the mod I am kinda leaning towards leaving it like it is.

Thanks for all your advice

 

[motokochan]

In general, most modern dynamic software follows that advice on making URLs.

Back in the old days, some software would go overboard with parameters. It wasn't uncommon to see "whatever.cgi?something=jsijoo2ioj&somethingelse=jioehdioeh9s&yetanotherthing=798789921&maybeanother=89ct87t&whynotmore=dht7r7xx56". Needless to say, that is bad practice for pages you want indexed.

I particularly find their advice amusing given that a search on Google from the Firefox search box results in six parameters in the URL.

 

[rsrikanth05]

Try this:
http://phpbb-seo.com

 

[mattchew]

phpbb-seo has a free phpBB 3 premodded version. I use it here: spyder.890m.com

Hope that helps.

 

[NovaArgon]

Thats cool!

It looks like there page is down. Is there another download link or should I just wait until it comes back up?

Thanks M8's

 

[Dragonfire870]

He posted the wrong link. The actual link is: http://www.phpbb-seo.com/

The site is in both French and English, and has some pretty nifty downloads. I'm considering installing some of them.

 

[mattchew]

Good luck, if you use phpBB3 SEO Premod. Make sure that if you are using a custom template you look through to premodded subforum, and you will find template changes, otherwise the template wont have the stylysheets and everything working properly.

 

[TheBasicsAbout]

Try this:
http://phpbb-seo.com

just did and got this:

Welcome to the home of phpbbseo.com
To change this page, upload your website into the public_html directory

Date Created: Sun Dec 23 01:36:49 2007

 

[rsrikanth05]

just did and got this:

The answer lies two posts above your own.

 

[TheBasicsAbout]

thank you ...
some times it's too easy yet impossible to see

 

[Frozenball]

Many people seem to forget that keyword-urls are much nicer to eye. It's so much better to copypaste links when they are in format like this:

http://forums.example.com/193/is_phpbb3_seo_friendly/

 

[rsrikanth05]

Many people seem to forget that keyword-urls are much nicer to eye. It's so much better to copypaste links when they are in format like this:

http://forums.example.com/193/is_phpbb3_seo_friendly/

Agreed.
Tell that to the people here:
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48762

 

[motokochan]

Looking nicer and helping rank are completely different things, rsrikanth05. I don't think anyone would argue that they can look a bit nicer (although sometimes they can look contorted), but there would be an argument over help in ranking.

If you want to rewrite URLs to include topic titles because you like the look, go ahead. The important thing is to be fully aware of what will be affected and not affected by doing such.

 

[rsrikanth05]

When I have nothing to lose, but a lot to gain, why wouldn't I go for it.