Custom SEO urls (mod_rewrite only)
What does this do?
This mod allows you to define the beginning part of all the friendly urls. Eventually, more of the url may be customizable but this should be enough to provide a nice structure to your site anyway. I have now released this as more of a mod to make it easier for the less technical admins. What use is this to me? I can see a couple of major uses here. 1. If you want to translate the friendly urls into your local language (so instead of having http://example.com/threads/123-Test-Thread/ you have http://example.com/[translation]/123-Test-thread) 2. You want a bit more structure to your links eg forum/threads, forum/posts, blogs/entries etc 3. You just don't like the defaults you've been stuck with and want to change to t,p,f,b and e Installation 1. First step here, is to ensure that the default mod rewrite urls work for you. Upload the default .htaccess file from the do_not_upload folder to your forums and switch on mod rewrite friendly urls in the server settings and optimisations area of your control panel. 2.Browse around your forums and check that all the links still work. (If they don't you need to work with vb support and your host to get them working) 3. Upload the contents of the upload folder in the zip. 4. Import the product. 5. There is now a new option group in your admin cp; friendly url settings. Change these to your liking. 5a. There is also a link to the rewrite rule generator from the settings page; once you've got the settings to your liking, visit the link to generate a .htaccess file. Alternativly follow the instructions below to make your own. 6. Once you've made these changes, you need to edit your .htaccess file rewrite rules to reflect the changes you made. You need to replicate the change to this file that you've made to the options. you will see a set of: Code:
RewriteRule ^threads/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) showthread.php?t=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^members/([0-9]+) member.php?u=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^forums/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) forumdisplay.php?f=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^blogs/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) blog.php?u=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^entries/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) entry.php?b=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} 7. (Optional) Extra credit. Some people want the /forums/ to point to the forumindex page and /blogs/ to point to blog.php the following rewrite rules will take care of this. These should be added to the .htaccess file (don't overwrite any existing rules, these are new ones) Code:
RewriteRule ^forums/(index.php)?$ forum.php?%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^blogs/(index.php)?$ blog.php?%{QUERY_STRING} forums.domain.com and blogs.domain.com support This is not quite as easy as the above and requires a file edit to achieve. If you are using 4.0.1; you can skip the file edit part as it appears to work without. 1. Make a backup copy of includes/class_friendly_url.php 2. Around line 604 find: PHP Code:
// REQUEST_URI is dependable for apache
PHP Code:
$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
PHP Code:
$url = 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
4. In the vbulletin control panel set the cookie domain to be .yourdomain.com I dont know if this will have any knock on effects elsewhere, but it seems to be working for me on my dev board. 5. You can now set a value for forums to be http://forums.domain.com and blogs to be http://blogs.domain.com or similar based upon your requirement. 6. Rewrite rules are a bit more complex for this setup; this is a good resource for getting the server side stuff setup: http://www.reconn.us/content/view/46/67/ example rewrite rules: Code:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?forums.domain.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^threads/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) showthread.php?t=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^members/([0-9]+) member.php?u=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) forumdisplay.php?f=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^/(index.php)?$ forum.php?%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?blogs.domain.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^entries/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) entry.php?b=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^/(index.php)?$ blog.php?%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^/([0-9]+)(?:/?$|(?:-[^/]+))(?:/?$|(?:/page([0-9]+)?)) blog.php?u=$1&page=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
Notes
Download
Custom Friendly URL's v4.0-0.1 alpha 4.zip (17.5 KB, 428 downloads) Screenshots |