UBB.Developers Forums UBB.classic V6.4 - 6.7 Modifications V6 Mod Ideas Script to generate static HTML pages of topics

Hello folks...

Has anyone considered writing an external PERL script that would generate static HTML pages for each topic? The links within the pages would point back to the ultimatebb.cgi/php links... and also an index page for the HTML pages.

This script could be run as a cronjob. The reason I am suggesting this script is because just about all the search engine robots refuse to spider the dynamic content of the UBB.

If there were a script that would create separate HTML pages and an index page for the spiders to crawl, I think would be a great way to get sites content indexed.

As an example, at the Temple of Blues , we have over 300+ topics with 2300+ posts yet the search engines have only indexed our main entrance page and none of the topics.

I posted a topic about this in the InfoPop UBB Marketing Forum about the lack of indexing, and there were several users who voiced their concern about this issue... so I figure a script would be a useful tool.

Any thoughts on this suggestion ?

Bump - no one is interested in this? C'mon folks, this good have a significant impact on the visibility of your forums' content on the search engines.

Most intelligent spiders can handle dynamic content... there's no signifigant need for this.

I would actually advise mod_rewrite or a similar tool. Less hacking the board...

Hello CC...

Well perhaps so, but based on real experience and that of many others (such as at www.searchengineforums.com) the spiders may be able to handle ?$ dynamic URLs but they sure don't seem willing to crawl and index them.

For example, Lycos states that they will not index any dynamic content (ex: with a ? in the URL)... Altavista indexes dynamic content, but only that which is submitted on an individual basis... IOW, Scooter won't crawl the forums)..

I have read about relatively complex URL rewriting schemes, in particular 404 custom redirects and the like, to gain the confidence of SE 'bots... but it just seems like a long slow journey to getting all our great UBB content indexed and searchable.