vBulletin SEO Optimization Tips

**Brandon Sheley** · 07-28-2006, 09:27 PM

Optimizing vBulletin for SEO and Server load will help your overall performance.
Here are a few tips I've found.

1. Store CSS StyleSheets as Files

By default, vBulletin will store the CSS of your pages as HTML within the head of the document. This, when taken over thousands of pages, can be quite a heavy burden.

Storing CSS Stylesheets as files will allow users/spiders to cache the CSS as a file, and make each page smaller, HTML wise, giving your server a bit of a breather.

To begin, ensure your forums/clientscript/vbulletin_css directory is chmod 777 so the stylesheet files can be created.
Next, in the AdminCP, select the vBulletin Options menu then vBulletin Options.
Select Style and Language Options.
Set "Store CSS Stylesheets as Files?" to Yes.
Click Submit.

2. Gzip those pesky pages!

Many hosts these days come with gzip as standard, meaning if you enable it within vBulletin you can actually slow pages down.

If your host has gzip installed, follow these instructions:

Go to the AdminCP, expand the vBulletin Options menu and select vBulletin Options.
Select Cookies and HTTP Header Options.
Set "GZIP HTML Output" to No, set "GZIP Compression Level" to 0 and click Submit.

If your host does not have gzip installed, choose Yes and 1 for the above.

3. Restrict Search Engine Crawling

Those spiders..they index your content, but there are always places that you don't want or need them to go.
To restrict the pesky critters to only eating up your Content, do the following.

In your root (public_html) directory, upload the following robots.txt::

Code:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /forums/ajax.php
Disallow: /forums/attachment.php
Disallow: /forums/calendar.php
Disallow: /forums/cron.php
Disallow: /forums/editpost.php
Disallow: /forums/global.php
Disallow: /forums/image.php
Disallow: /forums/inlinemod.php
Disallow: /forums/joinrequests.php
Disallow: /forums/login.php
Disallow: /forums/member.php
Disallow: /forums/memberlist.php
Disallow: /forums/misc.php
Disallow: /forums/moderator.php
Disallow: /forums/newattachment.php
Disallow: /forums/newreply.php
Disallow: /forums/newthread.php
Disallow: /forums/online.php
Disallow: /forums/poll.php
Disallow: /forums/postings.php
Disallow: /forums/printthread.php
Disallow: /forums/private.php
Disallow: /forums/profile.php
Disallow: /forums/register.php
Disallow: /forums/report.php
Disallow: /forums/reputation.php
Disallow: /forums/search.php
Disallow: /forums/sendmessage.php
Disallow: /forums/showgroups.php
Disallow: /forums/subscription.php
Disallow: /forums/threadrate.php
Disallow: /forums/usercp.php
Disallow: /forums/usernote.php

Remove any lines that you WANT the spiders to see.. if you want them to crawl the Calendar, take out Disallow: /forums/calendar.php.

4. Move Attachments to the File System

Stock vBulletin Attachments are stored in the Database. Large attachments or frequent viewing of them can cause a strain.

To move them to the File System, create an attachments directory above your public_html (at the same level as it.. /root/username/public_html | root/username/attachments) and CHMod it 777.

By placing it at this level, we prevent anyone from being able to access the attachments directly (ie: not through vBulletin).

Next, go to the AdminCP and expand the Attachments menu.
Click on Attachment Storage Type.
Move your attachments out of the database and into the file system.

Attachment Path: /home/*username*/attachments

5. Move Avatars and Profile Pics to the File System

As with the Attachments above, but the Avatars are on every post, so cause a burden to the server whenever a post is viewed.

To move them to the filesystem, chmod your forums/customavatars and forums/customprofilepics directories to 777.
Go to the AdminCP and expand the Avatars menu.
Click User Picture Storage Type.
Choose to Move Avatars and Profile Pics to the File System.

Avatar Path: /home/*username*/public_html/forums/customavatars

Avatar URL: /forums/customavatars

Profile Pic Path: /home/*username*/public_html/forums/customprofilepics

Profile Pic URL: /forums/customprofilepics

6. Increase Cached Posts Lifespan

Posts can be "cached", meaning the server doesn't have to pull them from the database every time they are viewed.
To enable Post Caching, do the following:

Go to the AdminCP, expand the vBulletin Options menu and select vBulletin Options.
Select Server Settings and Optimization Options in the drop down menu.
Set "Cached Posts Lifespan" to 90.
Click Submit.
If you have very little spare space, drop it to 30.

7. Disable Search and Who's Online for Guests

Why should guests (which are often mainly Spiders) see your Who's Online and Search? Do the following to stop them and reduce the load.

Go to your AdminCP.
Expand the Usergroups menu.
Select Usergroup Manager.
Select Unregistered / Not Logged In.
Set both "Can Search Forums" and "Can View Who's Online" to No.
Click Submit.

8. Turn on fulltext searching

Go to your AdminCP and expand the vBulletin Options menu
Select Search Type.
Set "Empty postindex and word tables?" to Yes.
Click Submit.

9. vBulletin.org Optimisation Mods

The following link willl provide the various Modifications that have been written by the Community at vB.org:

vB3.5 Add-ons - vBulletin.org Forum

[Source....] thx to Kall @ vbenhanced.com

**Brandon Sheley** · 07-31-2006, 12:10 AM

these are some tweaks that I'll always do,, you can try them and see if they work for your topics..

all these are in vBoptions.. thats in your admin control panel

Store CSS Stylesheets as Files? > yes

Message Posting and Editing Options > Automatically Quote Post / Thread Title > yes

Message Searching Options > Automatic Similar Thread Search > yes

Forum Listings Display Options > Show Forum Descriptions in Forum Listings > yes

Forum Display Options (forumdisplay) > Enable Forum Description > yes
(( I don't use this on vbseo sites, it has its own dynamic feature like this ))

External Data Provider > Enable External Javascript > yes

External Data Provider > Enable RSS Syndication > yes

External Data Provider > Enable XML Syndication > yes

Hope this helps some people better understand what goodies the vBoptions has in it

**Brandon Sheley** · 08-04-2006, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon

2. Gzip those pesky pages!

Many hosts these days come with gzip as standard, meaning if you enable it within vBulletin you can actually slow pages down.

If your host has gzip installed, follow these instructions:

Go to the AdminCP, expand the vBulletin Options menu and select vBulletin Options.
Select Cookies and HTTP Header Options.
Set "GZIP HTML Output" to No, set "GZIP Compression Level" to 0 and click Submit.

If your host does not have gzip installed, choose Yes and 1 for the above.

if you don't want or can't contact your host to find this out, you can use this link

GIDZipTest: Web Page Compression (Deflate / Gzip) Test - GIDNetwork

if your host has gzip enabled, you don't want it set to yes in your vboptions..

**Brandon Sheley** · 08-20-2006, 12:34 AM

Here are some tips I seen Brent post on AF, and asked him if it was cool that I reposted it here.. Hope it helps some people out

This article will only touch on things you can do to the vBulletin software in order to reduce the server load on your server without sacrificing some of the features you love about vBulletin. Please note this is just my personal preference on how I have my vBulletin software configured.

Site in question: Mustang Evolution
vBulletin Version: 3.6 Beta 3

First let me show how I have some of the default settings:

vBulletin Options -> Search Type (Drop Down Under vBulletin Options): If you have MySQL 4.0.x you can use this option to greatly reduce server load when a search query is used on your server.
vBulletin Options -> General Settings -> Use Forum Jump Menu: I have this setting turned off. If you have a large forum this will cause the server to work harder as it was to Generate the Forum Jump and then display it on the page. The Forum Jump consists of alot of html which makes the page larger which increases bandwidth usage and finally increases the code to content ratio (Search Engines may or may not take Code To Content ration into consideration when ranking a page. They do like smaller pages however). 95% of the users will not even realize it is gone. Atleast this is the case on my site.
vBulletin Options -> General Settings -> Disable AJAX Features: Make sure that this is set to allow all AJAX Features. Ajax helps reduce server load by not reloading a page where AJAX is used. (Quick Reply for instance)
vBulletin Options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options -> GZIP HTML Output: I have this turned off because my server handles this through my httpd.conf file via mod_deflate. If you are not sure whether or not you have this enabled on your server you may test it using this website: GZIP Test It will tell you if you have it enabled or not and if you do it will show you how much the page was compressed. My main page: Mustang Web Site uncompressed is 31,460 bytes and compressed 8,774 bytes. Make sure the Compression Level is never set higher than 1.
vBulletin Options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options -> Remove Redirection Message Pages: I have this set to Yes. Not only do I find them incredibly annoying but they cause an unneeded page load.
vBulletin Options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options -> Add No-Cache HTTP Headers: Make sure this is set to No.
vBulletin Options -> Server Settings and Optimization Options -> Cached Posts Lifespan: I have this set to 10 days. Once you turn this on I recommend rebuilding your Cache Posts via Maintenance -> Update Counters
vBulletin Options -> Server Settings and Optimization Options -> Update Thread Views Immediately: Set this to No. With this set at No the Thread Views will automatically update via Cron every 1 hour by default. If you wish to change this you can do so by editing the Scheduled Task for Thread Views to a different time. Mine is set to update thread views every 15 minutes.
vBulletin Options -> Server Settings and Optimization Options -> Update Attachment Views Immediately: I have this set to No as well. I just use the default cron to update these.
vBulletin Options -> Style & Language Settings -> Store CSS Stylesheets as Files?: Set this to yes. Make sure that you change the permission of the /clientscript/vbulletin_css/ folder to 777. This greatly reduces the page size and the code to content ration as well as not requiring the web server to spit out all that code on every page load.
vBulletin Options -> User Listing & Profile Viewing -> Show Last Post on Profile Page: This is very server intensive. Set this to No.
vBulletin Options -> Message Posting and Editing Options -> Quick Reply: Not only does this make posting faster which leads to more posts being made this also uses ajax which means you do not have to load another page to make a post. I use this hack: Smilies in QR and QE To even further reduce the need to click the Post Newreply Button. I have Quick Reply set to: Yes, Click Not Required.
vBulletin Options -> Message Posting and Editing Options -> Quick Edit: Turn this on to reduce the need for a new page reload when someone simply wants to edit a post.
vBulletin Options -> Message Searching Options -> Minimum Time Between Searches: I have mine set to 5. I recommend setting some kind of small time limit to reduce any chance of abuse or attempt to use the search engine to bring your site to a crawl.
* vBulletin Options -> Forums Home Page Options -> Display Logged in Users?: I have mine set to Yes, Alphabetical listing to members only. What this does is show your members Alphabetically if you are logged in and random if logged out. This helps reduce server load by limiting the amount of people that use the Alphabetical sort since it causes additional server power to performn this sort.
* vBulletin Options -> Forum Display Options -> Show Users Browsing Forums: I have this option set to Yes, Random Listing to all visitors I do not care how they are sorted on Forum Display.
vBulletin Options -> Forum Display Options -> Maximum Displayed Threads Before Page Split: I have this set to 20. I would not go much higher than this. The higher you go the more resources it takes to generate those extra threads to show and the bigger your page gets. Note: Changing this will change the amount of Forumdisplay pages that are generate overall which will result in a reindex by search engines.
* vBulletin Options -> Thread Display Options -> Show Users Browsing Threads: I have this set to Yes, Random Listing to all visitors for the same reason I gave for Forumdisplay pages.
vBulletin Options -> Thread Display Options -> Check Thread Rating: I have this set to no. Thread Ratings are rarely used on my forum so I don't need it to tell the user whether or not they have rated the thread and what their rating was.
* vB_Datastore_Filecache: You may use the file system to cache your Datastore and improve performance. To do this Open your config.php file in your includes folder and find:

PHP Code:

  // $config['Datastore']['class'] = 'vB_Datastore_Filecache';

and simply remove the two

PHP Code:

//

before

PHP Code:

  $config['Datastore']['class'] = 'vB_Datastore_Filecache';

to enable Filesystem caching of your datastore. Make sure that you have /includes/datastore/datastore_cache.php set to 777 so that it may write to the file.
That is all the Default Options in vBulletin that I recommend looking into. Feel free to ask questions if you need further explanation on any of them.

Now let us look at some hacks that I find useful in reducing the server load and increasing site speed:
Plugin Based Template Hack: This is a GREAT hack that I have been using for sometime now. I have not run into any issues with this hack. This hack is even further complimented with APC caching.
Microstats - load times, server loads, queries, uncached templates: This hack does nothing to improve performance but it offers an excellent way to determine your server load times, server load and any uncached templates you have.

Additional Information:

Last update: June 25, 2006, 2:52AM CST
This article will be updated as new information becomes available. Keep checking back for updates.
This article may not be redistributed without consent of me.
Anything marked with * is a vBulletin 3.6 Specific Feature.
Disclaimer: I can not be held responsible for any damages caused by you making changes suggested within this thread. While there is very little chance that these settings can effect your board in a negative way I can not guarentee that they will behave on your forum the same way they have mine.

Crow · 10-05-2006, 08:38 PM

Question...

Can someone explain a bit more about this "Filesystem caching of your datastore". What it really does, and does it really emprove things? Thanks

Also THANKS for the Gzip, I did a check and my server had it and once I turned it off in vB my pages sped up like crazy!!

**Brandon Sheley** · 10-05-2006, 09:15 PM

actually I'm not sure, but by the wording I'd say that vb makes a cache of pages or something and uses them. That way the whole page or site doesn't have to reload each time ?

Hopefully someone else can explain this better..

10-22-2006, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crow

Question...

Can someone explain a bit more about this "Filesystem caching of your datastore". What it really does, and does it really emprove things? Thanks

Also THANKS for the Gzip, I did a check and my server had it and once I turned it off in vB my pages sped up like crazy!!

What it does is take the datastore out of the database and instead puts it in the filesystem. It reduces 1 query globaly and helps reduce server load.

If you use APC you can also store the datastore directly into APC which saves a write to the file system, further reducing server load.

big-ah · 11-06-2006, 05:41 PM

this post was wonderful, very, very, very useful

Thank you for helping

**eric** · 11-08-2006, 12:40 PM

I have applied several options discussed in here and indeed it helped navigation speed. I set css as files correctly this time, and also set the caching, though I never ever set it, config file was active but the file itself didn't have correct permissions, already a wonder it worked with those settings

the gzip part seems to be confusing to many... Brandon might confirm but even if server isn't set to do it via apache, best set it of... not many cases where it will be helpful ...

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-08-2006, 02:16 PM

if your server already has GZIP in affect you should set the options in acp to none.

if your server doesn't have gzip enabled, I usually set the options in acp to about a 3 or 4

**Greek76** · 11-08-2006, 03:32 PM

Ive got to admit I just did most of these tips and automatically noticed that my forum was much faster than normal. As a matter of fact I got pmed by a moderator and asked what happen to the forum its like lightning speed. Great tips guys!

big-ah · 11-09-2006, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greek76

Ive got to admit I just did most of these tips and automatically noticed that my forum was much faster than normal. As a matter of fact I got pmed by a moderator and asked what happen to the forum its like lightning speed. Great tips guys!

yes Greek! most more faster

like lightning speed :2biggrin:

**UltimateOreo** · 11-09-2006, 01:34 PM

Thanks, this really helped out

**JD45** · 11-12-2006, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by big-ah

this post was wonderful, very, very, very useful

Thank you for helping

Agreed, applied almost all of the recommendations..

**NCangler** · 11-14-2006, 09:50 PM

:1confused: Thanks so much for these tips! The one I'm not sure about is the Gzip. I've emailed my webhost but I ran the test on the link you provided and it said "No" so I"m assuming that Gzip is turned off on our site. So I turned the GZIP HTML Output option on with a level of 1. I ran the test from that link again and it said that the files were still not being compressed. :1confused:

**Cloud** · 11-24-2006, 08:56 PM

When I Set "Store CSS Stylesheets as Files?" to Yes.

It puts one of the skins out of place. It wouldnt be a problem if it was affecting a skin I didnt use but it so happens to be breaking the skin I have set as default.

It gives incorrect image links to some of the images.

How do I get around this?

Cheers Guys

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-24-2006, 09:05 PM

did you chmod the "vbulletin_css" folder to 777 ?

I think that is the right folder from memory.. It says in the acp..

btw Cloud, can you reply to my PM

Thanks and Enjoy the site
-Brandon

**Cloud** · 11-24-2006, 09:31 PM

Yep I did chmod the folder to 777

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-24-2006, 11:35 PM

someone with more graphics knowledge can give you a better answer then I can on this one then. sorry

**eric** · 11-25-2006, 12:27 AM

I also had a hard time to get it going, I had to toggle several times yes no before it started to work. Not sure why, just it refused.
Now it does and it made for each style a unique file.
Maybe you should revert to no, delete what is in the css directory and set it back to yes, no clue how it could link wrong since each style is one 'unique' file.

**G_Man** · 11-29-2006, 08:20 PM

alright, Brandon... riddle me this! We are on the same host, so what did you do to get GZip with Fluid as opposed to just using the vbulletin settings and... why is that better than just using the vB setting?

Cheers!

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-29-2006, 09:30 PM

I don't have Gzip enabled on the server. I'm using the vbulletin settings..

and you don't want to have both enabled, it wont be as efficient.

btw, when do you get on fluid ? did CM refer ya ? he is who told me about this host, I've been very happy with them.

**G_Man** · 11-29-2006, 09:50 PM

Okay.. gotcha... turned it on After Seppuku... holy... needed that!!! LOL

Yep, chatted with CM and switched. Funny thing is that I followed your little Noob/Loser (said jokingly) thread as you asked nearly every question I would have over there on Fluid!!!

So, I didn't have to sound clueless when I signed up, thanks to you!!!

Of course, I didn't have to, but still did!!!! LOL

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-29-2006, 10:01 PM

yup, I asked questions for a week or two b4 I signed up

I hate moving sites, when I get a good host I'm with them for the long haul.

my last two host sucked it up and I lost money because when I would show clients my sites, they would be down

and the host had no explanation for it.. >

So far Fluid has been great, and the support they offer is outstanding

**eric** · 11-29-2006, 10:45 PM

These days it is so easy to start hosting, servers are cheap... but it is as easy to drawn. I know pretty well the business, and giving support is hell, hence why I turned private... you have so many ... that want all, know nothing and expect all from provider for nothing..; and wile you try to help those out, others are waiting in queu for more valid reasons. And then keeping your server tight when half of them load crappy unsecure code.... hell of a time

**SirAdrian** · 12-10-2006, 05:37 PM

Good post.

One thing I want to clarify is

Quote:

Posts can be "cached", meaning the server doesn't have to pull them from the database every time they are viewed.

They are still pulled from the database (hence the cached posts table), but they don't have to be parsed (bbcode to html) again, which does save server load.

**Capper** · 12-15-2006, 01:57 PM

Quote:

1. Store CSS StyleSheets as Files

By default, vBulletin will store the CSS of your pages as HTML within the head of the document. This, when taken over thousands of pages, can be quite a heavy burden.

Storing CSS Stylesheets as files will allow users/spiders to cache the CSS as a file, and make each page smaller, HTML wise, giving your server a bit of a breather.

To begin, ensure your forums/clientscript/vbulletin_css directory is chmod 777 so the stylesheet files can be created.
Next, in the AdminCP, select the vBulletin Options menu then vBulletin Options.
Select Style and Language Options.
Set "Store CSS Stylesheets as Files?" to Yes.
Click Submit.

This optimization is causing several errors in my CPANEL error log...

**Brandon Sheley** · 12-15-2006, 02:11 PM

I've found that on some servers I'm not able to implement this tweak

I don't know why, but I'll CHMOD the folder and set to yes in acp and then the style gets messed up.

I've never seen anything in the log file, but then again, I've never looked.

**Capper** · 12-15-2006, 02:20 PM

everything looks fine....as far as I know.... but I'm getting error messages saying certain css files can't be foun

....oh, and awesome tweaks btw,,,

**Brandon Sheley** · 12-15-2006, 02:34 PM

what files aren't found ? should they be in the vbulletin_css folder ?