Upgraded to latest version 4101BF today for lang link rel="alternate" hreflang

[ctrenks]

SO I upgraded the vbet to add IBM and mainly the link rel="alternate" hreflang code for translated pages but this is not appearing after the upgrade. I did delete the cloudlflare cache to be sure it was not in there.

[ctrenks]

ping - not sure if i missed somhing, re-enables in settings and still no value

[vBET]

Hello, sorry but I'm not sure do I understand the issue. You made vBET update and you want to use IBM translation. I assume that you created IBM account and set correct settings in Admin CP > vBET > Translation Providers for "IBM Watson FREE/Commercial Translation API key" and "IBM Watson FREE/Commercial Translation API URL". If you did so and wonder does IBM translation is really working, you can check it by uploading on your forum file from vBET package (do-not-upload\tools\providers-tests\test_ibmwatson.php) and checking translation status in your bower (put URL of your forum with /test_ibmwatson.php). That is how you can make sure that IBM translation is working for you if this is the issue.

You also wrote about "rel="alternate" hreflang" - and It do not understand what is that issue here. What do you mean by hreflang? What about the rel="alternate"? Which setting exactly are you writing about (please write full path)? Where it suppose to appear and why? Sorry - I'm not catching it. Could you please explain more.

[ctrenks]

Sorry, I wanted the IBM watson, (still getting key as it confusing as can be) -- No issue there with vbet

Real issue, I did the update as I need the rel="alternate" hreflang" meta tags added to the translated pages, and that is not appearing even though I have it enabled in settings--


Adds "alteranate" tags on the page. "Alternate" tags helps Google serve the correct language or regional URL (more information). Enabling this option will have a negative impact on performance (time overhead of adding tags and sending more data to users).

[vBET]

I understand the issue now. Please note that "alternate" is added only for guests and it is visible only in HTML (not in browser), because it is for crawlers not for real users.

Also it works only for translated URLs and you are not using any SEO optimization for URLs (you have such included in vBulletin since vBulletin 4, just need to configure vBulletin and then also configure vBET to recognize it and translate URLs). If you do it and still have issue with "alternate" please let us know, we will investigate it.

[ctrenks]

ahh ok i did not check without being logged in.

[ctrenks]

Veiwing source of https://www.allfreechips.com/de/

Without being logged in I do not see the tag?

[vBET]

When the option is enabled additional HTML code should be added for guests:

<link rel='alternate' hreflang='...
This should be added for each URL you already have translated in your cache for actual page. So to make it woks, you need also friendly URLs (only then URLs are translated). As I see you already have it turned on, but you have some configuration issues with your friendly URLs - on forum page you have nice friendly URLs, but after clicking it you are redirected to not friendly URL (with showthread.php). You should correct it in your configuration.

Also the "alternate" is added only when guest cache is used. It is not described in parameter description to keep it easier to understand, but it is made in purpose - for performance reasons (cached page is cheap to obtain, but if guest cache is off, then getting each time all translated URLs for same page would be too expensive for forums which have all 53 languages on).

[ctrenks]

I see this showthread only happens when your not in english , is this a vbet setting im missing?

[vBET]

It happens on your forum when you are in English too. Go to link for some thread on your forum and see that you are redirected. On translated page I see your links are with showthread.php from beginning, but on English page those become showthread.php when you click it (you are redirected). So this is the main issue here - if your vBulletin recognizes showthread.php as appropriate URLs (redirects there), probably this is the reason why on translated pages you have from beginning showthread.php URLs (vBET changes URLs to add language there and it appears that it gets such URLs from vBulletin - this is only way for us - change what we get).

If you want to be sure that it is not vBET issue, you can temporally disable plugin by Admin CP and see what happens. You can also temporally disable .htaccess rules for vBET.

vBET setting for SEO URLs are in Admin CP > vBET > Main > Link Type.
More info about vBET configuration and vBulletin configuration you will find in readme.html file from vBET package (there are some advices about SEO links).
Also make sure, that you are using supported SEO engine. vBET supports vBSEO (old solution) and vBulletin native SEO links.

[ctrenks]

Im using dragonbyte, I went though English and it seem'd OK. let me keep looking

[ctrenks]

OK, so in english it all looks correct, changing lang its showing the forunthread? ext.. does not VBET rename the urls for the translated pages? English logged in or out all links are .html rewrites?

Only when the page is translated does the url get not re-written

[vBET]

Once again in English it is not correct, because you are redirected to showthread.php page and you shouldn’t. URL in your browser should be same as in front page - SEO friendly.
For example go to page:

https://www.allfreechips.com/phpBB2/new-members-forum/10209-new-members-please-read-before-posting-new-post.html
You will be redirected to:

https://www.allfreechips.com/phpBB2/showthread.php?t=10209&page=10&p=75367#post75367
That shouldn’t happen.

What happens with URLs on translated pages can be related to this issue, so this one must be solved first.
Clearly vBulletin do not recognizes appropriate URL and make redirection to not SEO friendly one.
As I wrote you can easily check is it related to vBET or not - see previous post.

[ctrenks]

I can not re-create the new post section in the thread. If i click on your url it re-directs, but any forum clicking shows normal seo freindlt url's. I thought i was ok with VB but where are you getting the new post link for a thread?

[vBET]

You will find "new-post" links on your forum main page:

https://www.allfreechips.com/phpBB2/
Please check does vBET is related to "new-post" issue by disabling it for a moment. If not - find solution. If yes - we will help you.

I see also other issue. As I see now for not "new-post" links your SEO links works fine, but you cannot go to translated page - you got redirection back to English page. This happens only on thread links (sub forums are OK).
Please make sure that your .htaccess file is OK. Also make sure that you are using supported by vBET SEO links. Please note that vBET requires integration with vBSEO if you are using it (described in readme.html).
If you confirm that your configuration is fine and the issue will still happen we will help you solve it on you server. Still first, please fallow our instructions. Installation/configuration service is paid one, we will help you free if this is some vBET bug. So first we need to confirm that your configuration is fine and "new-post" issue is related to vBET. As long as SEO are not working fine without vBET we cannot expect them to work fine with vBET.

[ctrenks]

I had your team alter the htaccess a long time ago for the forum and non forum pages, I also went with Dragonbyte SEo in place of vbseo. I do know I can not delete the VBSE functions still without error even though the plugin is removed from vbulletin.

[ctrenks]

here is the forum directory htaccess related.



RewriteRule ^/?(af|sq|ar|be|bg|ca|zh-CN|hr|cs|da|nl|en|et|tl|fi|fr|gl|de|el|iw|hi|hu|is|id|ga|it|ja|ko|lv|lt|mk|ms|mt|no|fa|pl|pt|ro|ru|sr|sk|sl|es|sw|sv|zh-TW|th|tr|uk|vi|cy|yi)/$ vbenterprisetranslator_seo.php?vbet_lang=$1&redirected=/phpBB2/ [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^/?(af|sq|ar|be|bg|ca|zh-CN|hr|cs|da|nl|en|et|tl|fi|fr|gl|de|el|iw|hi|hu|is|id|ga|it|ja|ko|lv|lt|mk|ms|mt|no|fa|pl|pt|ro|ru|sr|sk|sl|es|sw|sv|zh-TW|th|tr|uk|vi|cy|yi)/(.*)?$ vbenterprisetranslator_seo.php?vbet_lang=$1&redirected=/phpBB2/$2 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|dbseo_sitemap/|cron)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?))$ vbenterprisetranslator_seo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule $ vbenterprisetranslator_seo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron|dbseo_sitemap)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?))$ dbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ dbseo.php [L,QSA]

[ctrenks]

In the root directory I have a lot of cpanel added comodo lines with vbet added as well for outside forum pages but that should not effect newthread ext.

[ctrenks]

I also went through all Dragonbyr=te settings and vbet and no mention of new thread. I will pay a fee to have this looked at closer if needed to correct.

[vBET]

Dragonbyte SEO is NOT supported by vBET - this is why you have issues. We do not plan to support external SEO engines, because vBulletin has native SEO engine since 4.0. We support integration with vBSEO as backward compatibility for forums before 4.0 or which do not want to change SEO engines. Forums which want to remove vBSEO have free SEO engine included in vBulletin since 4.0.

[ctrenks]

hmm I thought dragonbyte was the only option after vbseo. let me investigate removing all together

[ctrenks]

Quick Q.. looking at the built in version in vb 4.5 i can pretty much keep all urls as they are, but its not adding .html by default and I see your url's gere are adding .html Any help in that would be great as it appears that not an option inside the friendly URL section.

Q2 - I am still tied to the VBSEO functions with VBET, I do not recall if there was a mod/setting to USE VBSEO with VBET that I can not locate to disable as well.

Hope to clean this all up and get working correctly here soon! thanks

[vBET]

In this forum we still have vBSEO. We are using native vBulletin SEO on our test forum and there we do not have added .html
In internet you can find articles about moving from vBSEO to native vBulletin SEO. One of those: https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/4363771-uninstall-vbseo-and-fixing-url
This one is not perfect - it suggest 301 redirect to old URL, but after that vBulletin should use itself another 301 redirect to his new SEO URL. This is not perfect for performance (1 additional redirect), but this will happen only for those who came from old URL from some links or from indexed pages. With time Google will reindex it and if 301 is used it should be without harm to your SEO (Google will just know that the page has new URL). You can look for other articles, maybe you will find how to redirect directly to new URL. Anyway - this is one of solutions.

Configuration of vBulletin functionality and other mods is out of our scope. We will help you with vBET configuration. You can ask vBulletin team about native SEO configuration, since this is their functionality and they know it best.

[ctrenks]

So your not afraid of the VBSE issues wioth security? I have a full license from VBSEO still not sure if i can DL the code anymore though,.

[ctrenks]

Would be ice to re-direct all urls to new ones as friendly urls I think, a bit afraid of the mass move though

[vBET]

We didn't had any security issues with vBSEO and we are not aware of such.

If you change your SEO links you should make redirection. Otherwise you will loose your traffic from outside links (which points to not existing URLs) and you will loose in search engines which will see that all already indexed content disappear. Pages under new URLs will be indexed as new content instead of just be reindexed under new URL. That is why we have 301 redirection - not just to redirect, but also to tell that old content changed permanently its address. This is one reason why we do not want to change our SEO engine, but if you already did it, you should take care about redirection from old URLs to new ones.

[ctrenks]

I dont want to change it lol, but I have to apperently. VBSEO has 2 major exploits and that's why they closed down. I was hit with one pretty hard where all google traffic was re-directed.

[vBET]

Thanks for information. In my opinion major reason of closing vBSEO is that the functionality is already included in vBulletin since 4.0, so people stop buying vBSEO. There was no sense to spend another dollars for something what you already got. Otherwise vBSEO team would just make update and get rid of exploits. But this is just my opinion.

At this moment I will mark this thread as solved, since we find out that there is nothing wrong with vBET in this area, you just use not supported SEO engine. You can use native vBulletin SEO engine with vBET without any additional plugins for it. In case if you choose to do it and still have issues, please write here or open new thread.

[ctrenks]

VBSEO closed their doors when the exploit hit, there is no update! I am looking to remove all together and go with the vb built in but need to take it slow