Search Engine Optimisation

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Contents 1 Numeric mode 2 Extended mode 3 Apache's mod_rewrite 4 vbSEO 5 Warning

LDM normally generates urls of the form yoursite/yourforum/local_links.php?catid=NN&linkid=MM. It is possible to set up the product to work in combination with Apache's mod_rewrite module to create and use urls that are more search-engine friendly. A similar result can be achieved with the vbSEO product.

To use the Apache approach, visit LDM->Admin->SEO options and set seo_friendly and seo_title:

• seo_friendly controls the mode (numeric or alphanumeric urls)
• seo_title specifies a string to be used in place of local_links.

Take care: If you enable this feature, it is essential that you also configure Apache to process the seo-friendly urls. Otherwise, users will be unable to access any categories or entries in your database; and they will receive "404 Page Not Found" messages or (depending on how Apache has been configured) be redirected to your home page or a standard error page.

Numeric mode

Set seo_friendly to Yes to generate numeric seo-friendly urls:

seo_title/links/CC - view category CC
seo_title/links/CC/KK - view entry KK in category CC
seo_title/jump/KK/CC - download/jump to entry KK in category CC
seo_title/play/CC/KK - play entry KK in category CC

where CC and KK are numbers (the catid and linkid respectively).

Extended mode

Set seo_friendly to Extended to generate alphanumeric seo-friendly urls:

seo_title/links/c-catname-CC - view category CC
seo_title/links/c-catname/KK - view entry KK in category CC
seo_title/jump/c-catname-CC/KK - download/jump to entry KK in category CC
seo_title/jump/c-catname-CC/KK - play entry KK in category CC

where catname is (similar to) the category name and KK is the linkid. "Similar to" means that any characters that are not ascii letters, digits and simple separators are replaced by dashes.

For this reason, this mode does not work very well if your board uses non-latin characters (e.g. cyrillic).

Apache's mod_rewrite

The apache_mod_rewrite_rules extra provides a sample .htaccess file containing rules for numeric and extended mode. Comments in that file explain how to apply these rules in Apache's httpd.conf file, in a root directory .htaccess file or in a forum directory .htaccess file.

vbSEO

Apparently, LDM can be integrated with the (commercial) product, vbSEO, although we have not tested this. Customers who have access to the vbSEO forums can find a discussion thread about integrating LDM within vbSEO.

If you use vbSEO, you do not need, and should disable, the LDM->Admin->seo_friendly settings.

Warning

• LDM's internal mod_rewrite feature (see Hacking LDM) is not related to search engine optimisation. Its purpose is to modify 'on the fly' the urls that are associated with LDM entries.