phpBB forums, SEO & Google Sitemaps

October 16th, 2008 0 Comments

If you run a phpBB forum (as I do), and it’s older than v3 (as mine is), and search engine presence is important to you (as mine is) then you should probably consider upgrading to phpBB v3 (as I am).

Apparently older versions of phpBB create something called a ‘bot-trap’ because they generate urls with session id’s for non-authenticated visitors (like bots). This means the bots encounter an endless number of links.

This phenomenon is also a problem if you automatically generate a Google Sitemap. The sitemap generator spiders the site like a bot and also encounters an endless number of links. This apparently chews up bandwidth and stops your generator from finishing the task.

I haven’t finished investigating this issue, but it all seems to point toward upgrading to v3 of phpBB – which apparently sorts all of these issues automatically.

See here and here for more info.