Solution: Getting Google to Spider Every UBB Thread

A PHP solution to getting UBB.classic 6.x boards indexed

[geckofuel]

After more than a year of frustration with not having anything in my UBB 6.3.1 indexed except the main forum pages (no threads were indexed), I decided to spend the weekend developing a solution to the problem. My solution involves making NO changes whatsoever to your UBB.

While I wait for the premier of BestBBS [bestbbs.com], this hack will have to do.

This is what I did:

In your .htaccess file place the following lines:

<Files boards>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

Now create a php file called "boards" (no extension) that is designed to include() your actual ubb link. The php file will act as a wrapper for the actual ubb pages. On the php page you will need to set up two functions:

1. the first function needs to be a post process placed at the very beginning of the file "boards." This function will process your php output after the file has been produced. It will look for all dynamic links of a particular type (threads and topics) and then replace them with a static HTML URL

2. The second function takes the HTML static URL and converts it into UBB format

3. Next you will need to include the output of the second function in your "boards" php page

include("$boardURL");

One last note, the system needs for the PHP Accelerator in UBB to be turned on!

Feel free to sticky me if you'd like the entire script or if you'd like to see it in action.