SEO for IPB (invision power board) & vbulliten forums

I've noticed that default installations of IPB and vbulletin have some trouble getting indexed properly specially by google.  The fastest way to fix this problem is by making your forum use links that end in .html.  By using a mod for your forum that automatically changes all the links, you should see almost instant improvement after your site is spidered again.  Here are the mods for each type of forum:

IPB 2.1 - http://forums.invisionize.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=80836&view=findpost&p=1579489
vBulletin - http://www.vbseo.com/

Here are some examples of what these mods will do for your forum:

Sub Forum Titles:
Before: http://www.website.com/index.php?showforum=1
After: http://www.website.com/forum-name-f1.html

Topic Titles:
Before:  http://www.website.com/index.php?showtopic=1
After: http://www.website.com/topic-title-t1.html

I installed this on my forum, and not only will it help get spidered, but I really like the way that it looks. Whenever you go to a thread, you can see the title inside of the url, so later on, that is really gonna help.

Very pleased so far.

Very nice mods.

yeah its a good idea..but vbseo is waaaaaaaaaay too costly..but i guess worth the price :)

awsome mod... i will use for sure!

I should point out that there are free options for vBulletin. vBSEO is marketed as an all-inclusive SEO add-on for vBulletin, hence the cost. But simple SEOed url hacks are readily available. vRewrite is a nice option, and probably the one we'll use unless we can get donations for vBSEO. But what's important to remember is that SEO for a BBS extends beyond the urls it outputs. Per forum keywords and rel=nofollow for links are also very important. Furthermore, a sitemap, though not required, would certainly help in the spidering of content.

Regarding vbSEO, you may want to check this.

Certainly an interesting post, though in my experience, that particular blogger has always seemed to be driven primarily by money, and has little actual knowledge about what he's saying. I'd take his comments with a shaker of sallt. Its fine to say vBSEO doesn't work, as some people have found it to be the case. But generally, those considering obtaining the program would be well served to disregard the above link and read more informed feedback.

I think vbSEO is a great product.

There are many forum owners that have increased their traffic from this.