Most forums have an annoying little habit ... their URL looks something like this:

http://www.domain.tld/forum/index.php?2819cd99skfgcv

Obviously, this doesn't help much with the Search Engines. You could play around in your forum source code to remedy that, but not all of us are skilled enough to do it.

Fortunately, there are people who are, and who did take care of all the dirty work for us. And I want to share with you a module called SMFSEO, which is geared towards (surprise, surprise) SMF boards.

SMFSEO is a module that turns your forum links into a format that's totally SE-friendly. But not only it's friendly, it's also very effective in increasing your SE-ranking, if used wisely.

The URL format into which SMFSEO changes your normal URLs can be one of two options:

1.
http://www.example.com/smf/the-board-name/index.0.html
http://www.example.com/smf/the-board-name/...pic-name.0.html

2.
http://www.example.com/smf/the-board-name/0/
http://www.example.com/smf/the-board-name/the-topic-name/0/


It also provides automated redirection of old-style URLS through 301 redirection, making sure there are no dead links. It generated unique Meta Keywords and Meta Description tags for each topic and forum. And it can automatically create XML sitemaps of an entire forum, supported by the major search engines.

After putting this module through rigorous testing, I can happily say that it works like a charm .

But there are a couple of setbacks, even though they're admittedly not that bad...

• It's a beta module... I didn't run into any problems with it, but still, it is a beta.

• It works only with SMF 1.0.7... Actually, I didn't get a chance to try it with other SMF versions yet. If I ever get to it, I'll keep you posted with the results.

• It requires 4 to 5 steps, one of them involving editing of a .htaccess file... Still, all those steps are very well documented and aren't that tricky, even if you know nothing about PHP or coding in general.

So there you have it. A nice little tool for your SMF board. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Now, I think the best way to install this mod, is to simply log into your SMF Administration area, click on Package Manager, scroll to the bottom and click on Download New Packages, click on Browse beside the phrase Simple Machines Mod Site, and scroll down until you find (or simply search for) SMFSEO 0.1 Beta.

Alternatively, you can just go to the SMFSEO Website, and follow the instructions there.

Enjoy!

Thanks man for the post. I imagined something like this was made but never knew about it.

I have to seriously consider installing this to my site. Part of my sites actualy content is in the forums and better search engine reachability would be nice. Plus the few posters I have tend to post quality stuff which might attract more people to join in. The little bother of installing might prove to be well worth it.

Good luck with that, Hercco . But if I may give you a little piece of advice, play around with this script on a test forum first. You'll probably run into a couple of misconfigurations at first, so it's better to keep your working forum safe from that, and do all your experimentation on a temporary one.

Keep notes of your steps, and when you're finished and satisified with the test result, apply them to your working forum.


Regards,
Mobham

hi thanx was sharing the info, that will help me to increase my forum ranking in google and also get noticedby other search engines.