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Joined: Jul 2004
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I set my UBB board to be spider friendly a while ago. I know the site has been crawled several times since then, but only a couple of posts seem to be picked up.

for instance, the word "posted" appears over 300 times in the forum. but when I do a google domain search for the word "posted" for the domain www.foodforyourblood.com, I only get 4 posts from the forum.
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=e...com&btnG=Search

in contrast, when I do a site search for "posted" on this website, I get over 12000 of posts:
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=e...com&btnG=Search

Do I need to do something else like reindex or something before this will make the whole forum search friendly? This was the main reason the owner upgraded.. and it doesn't seem to be working. ?? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

the forum:
http://www.foodforyourblood.com

click the forum button on the left or go directly to the forum here:

http://www.foodforyourblood.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi

Thanks for any help you can give me.

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ok... I see that there has been a new version released since I upgraded the forum.

I will go ahead and install that and see if that helps...

wonder if google doesn't like the ? in the path? I don't see it here.

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UBB.threads Developer
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Google does not like "spider friendly compatability mode" in my experiance.


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thanks for responding. I was just reading the upgrade instructions.

I tried turning off the compatibility mode and I got a weird message "input message not found" when I would try to display the forums. So, I figure this is like the 404.

so.. I am going to upgrade. I figure that should fix the problem with turning off the compatibility mode. After the upgrade, I should be able to turn it off without a problem, and then I hope it will get spidered if that ? is gone (fingers crossed).

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Pooh-Bah
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Compat mode is required due to server configuration - nothing an upgrade does will fix that. Though you should still perform that upgrade. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It looks like your web hosting provider is using/reselling Rapidsite, which is a heavily modified Apache server... there's no reason why it shouldn't be working without compat mode.

Please speak to your web hosting provider about using CGI and PHP scripts and the PATH_INFO environmental variable, as well as the error you're getting regarding input messages. They may be able to investigate.


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<img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I upgraded and still I get "No input file specified." when I turn on Spider friendly (both short and long, doesn't matter) and turn off compatibility mode.

please.. can someone help? I don't know enough about UBB internals to figure out what to do at this point.

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would this be why I am still getting paths like this when I have compatibility on:

http://www.foodforyourblood.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/forum/1.html

isn't this why google doesn't crawl the forum? the "?" in the path?

why is there no "?" in the path for this forum?

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ok, I guess what I need to know is what exactly to ask my host? I am not familiar with php. Perl, yes, php no.

so, does compatability mode just put a "?" in the path to make the server happy? Why do some servers need the "?" ?

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Pooh-Bah
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Google is sensitive to query strings - all the stuff to the right of the question mark. It assumes (correctly) that query string denotes a dynamic page. Excessive crawling of dynamic pages can lead to high server load and angry server admins. Also, some dynamic pages basically do the same thing with different query strings, so indexing them doesn't always make sense.

Spider-friendly mode eliminates the query string by taking advantage of a feature of the CGI specifiction that allows a script to act as a virtual directory - the server resolves /ubb/ultimate.php/forum/1.html as the ultimate.php script, then calls it up and sets a variable containing the "/forum/1.html" bit, which the script can use. Most spiders ignore the fact that there's a .php or .cgi in the file path.

Unfortunately, your web hosting proivder hasn't configured their server so that PHP scripts can be called in this way. The main UBB scripts can do it, however. For example: http://www.foodforyourblood.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi/forum/1.html

In compat mode, we insert a query string with the path instead of using the path directly. For some search engines, they see the different form of query string (/this/that instead of this=that) and think that they can spider the pages properly. Googlebot doesn't do this all the time.

So, as I said above - you should speak to your host about the PHP issue. You could also consider turning off the Accelerator, though this may lead to performance issues.

*edit* Ask your host this. Feel free to copy and paste:

I'm trying to use a PHP script that needs to accept a PATH_INFO environmental variable. It works OK for CGI scripts:

http://www.foodforyourblood.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi/forum/1.html

... but it fails for PHP scripts:

http://www.foodforyourblood.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/forum/1.html

The script vendor tells me that this is a configuration problem with your server. Can you look into this problem for me?


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Thank you so much.

And I will turn off the performance option for now. it is a quiet forum, which is why we are trying to get it into google, so more people can find it. <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

and thanks so much for giving me the exact wording. I will copy and paste it.

<img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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Just a nudge for them, I just moved my boards to a VPS, and it was not accepting the PATH_INFO. After some research I found that I needed to add AcceptPathInfo On to my httpd.conf file.

I am running on Apache2 if that helps them any <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/core.html

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Quote
Originally posted by Ron M:
[qb] Just a nudge for them, I just moved my boards to a VPS, and it was not accepting the PATH_INFO. After some research I found that I needed to add AcceptPathInfo On to my httpd.conf file.

I am running on Apache2 if that helps them any <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/core.html [/qb]
I sent them your note in addition to the other information.

This is what I got back today:
Quote
Hello Lynne,

Thank you for contacting technical support.

Regarding:
---------------------------------------------------------------
I'm trying to use a PHP script that needs to accept a PATH_INFO environmental variable. ... but it fails for PHP scripts:
---------------------------------------------------------------

To see how php is configured on our syetem please take a look at the following php info page.

http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php

You will see that PATH_INFO is offered as an environmental variable.

PHP is offered "as is" and is not configurable at the ini or in the httpd.conf. Please also note that php is installed as a CGI and not an apache module.

You may need to further troubleshoot to ensure that the script is encoded properly.

Thank you for choosing Verio!

Clint S.
Verio Customer Operations
Unfortunately, I don't know enough about PHP to know what to do about this. Can I do anything to enable me to run the PHP accelerator and yet still have the forum search friendly?

Thanks, and thanks for trying to explain, too.

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Pooh-Bah
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If your web hosting provider will not look into the issue, then nothing can be done, other than switching to another host.


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Meh. If the dude would have tried http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php/action/failure it would have shown him what you were trying to explain.

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Quote
Originally posted by Charles Capps:
[qb] If your web hosting provider will not look into the issue, then nothing can be done, other than switching to another host. [/qb]
in other words, because of this:
Virtual Directory Support: disabled

I can't use the PHP accelerator with spider friendly URLS.. right?

Is this something most hosts have enabled?

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Quote
Originally posted by Ron M:
[qb] Meh. If the dude would have tried http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php/action/failure it would have shown him what you were trying to explain. [/qb]
Sorry.. I don't get what you are saying. Are you saying that

http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php?action=failure

should do something? I am not sure if this is what the command would be without virtual directory.

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The exact URL I typed is a valid URL, on a properly configured server. That is an example of what PATH_INFO should be returning.

Here's a semi-technical explanation:

When you use the URL http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php?action=failure , everything after the ? is in QUERY_STRING
So PHP has the following values:
$_ENV["SCRIPT_NAME"] = "/phpinfo.php"
$_ENV["QUERY_STRING"] = "action=failure

When you use the URL (when it is properly configured) http://198.66.49.185/phpinfo.php/action/failure , the server returns everything after the phpinfo.php to the script for processing.
$_ENV["SCRIPT_NAME"] = "/phpinfo.php"
$_ENV["PATH_INFO"] = "/action/failure"

The reason why yours is not working is due to this:

_ENV["SCRIPT_NAME"] /cgi-bin/php4.cgi
_ENV["PATH_INFO"] /phpinfo.php

It appears that they are using a handler ( http://www.rapidsite.com/services_freebsd.php - *PHP is installed as a CGI accessed through a handler - files using PHP4 should be named .php or .php4), and I'm not very familiar with that particular configuration.

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Pooh-Bah
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In other words, it's your host that has the nutty setup. Most hosts run PHP as an Apache module, which will handle the requirements just fine.


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thanks for all your help.

I guess I will just tell the owner about this problem with Verio's setup. The last note they sent me said:
Quote
Due to the nature of the Shared Web Hosting environment in which your account is hosted, the webserver and PHP have been configured to ensure security and reliabilty for all the accounts hosted on the server. For this reason some scripts will not be compatible with the configuration on our servers.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us.
and a different person has answered each email.

<img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />


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