Why does PHP need to be compiled as a module for vb3?

addressing rogerd's post

[skunker]

Hello,
This is a question for rogerd. Earlier you posted something about vbulletin getting indexed by search engines only if the VB3 arhives are setup right, and you went on to say that PHP must be run as module.

It does not make sense to me. Not sure why it would neeed to be a module for their archive feature.

Perhaps someone else can chime in?

[rogerd]

I don't know if it has to do with the URL rewriting or something else, but it's definitely necessary. There has been a bit of complaining about this since some users on shared hosting may have a problem. I assume that making this feature more flexible is non-trivial, since it seems like Jelsoft's sole response has been to make it clearer that the module approach is absolutely required for the archive. Initially, this wasn't particularly well-documented.

On the plus side, I'm seeing a fair number of vB3 archive pages getting indexed across a range of sites. One good example is their own support forum, where SE indexing now seems to favor archive pages vs. the heavier forum pages.

[jatar_k]

I don't know for sure but it may have to do with utilizing functions in php that are not available when it is installed as CGI.