I am both using the WordPress blogging platform and the phpBB forum / message board / bulletin board platfrom. I have always consider stable semantic good looking URL's as an important part of SEO and for years I have been aware of the classic SitePoint blog article: http://blogs.sitepoint.com/search-engine-friendly-urls/
that is still #1 for the query:
search engine friendly urls
I even started my own WPW thread about the subject: Creating friendly URLs that was number one on Google for that term when it was hot: http://www.surftoolbar.com/#non-linear- ... ch-engines (the socalled fresh content bump effect). Today it is # 6 for the same term on Google.
WordPress is very foccused on plugins for everything. The narrow query perma links gives 5 hits while the broader term SEO gives 994 hits on the WordPress plugin page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
But the following
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1364855 (Not nice looking but still #1 for phpbb permalinks )
thread from the mouth of the horse don't indicate that nice looking phpBB perma links are important for search engines.
2. phpBB SEO
That topic has got its own site on the internet: http://www.phpbb-seo.com/
Download Ultimate SEO URL: http://downloads.phpbb-seo.com/phpbb-seo-url-10/Ultimate SEO URL v0.6.6
This mod will URL rewrite phpBB URLs in various manners, injecting, or not, forums and topic titles in their URLS, each URL being rewritten once, no matter the number of links using it on the page.
This mod requires running Apache Server with mod_Rewrite module loaded, or IIS server running isapi_rewrite.
Other downloads here: http://downloads.phpbb-seo.com/
So how important is onpage and offpage SEO for phpBB powered sites?
Are my rules (consensus) that you can find by querying:
site:webproworld.com kgun "SEO rule"
still valid?
3. Side note: The Google site operator.
The Google site operator is remarkably accurate. I noted when making the above query that the following query on google:
site:webproworld.com kgun
that june 14. 2011 give 9,650 results on Google while my post count the same date is 7591 posts. Since posts in the break room like in this thread http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-fo ... g-language don't count, Google should have indexed about every post I have written on that forum. So let us try another query with posts in the break room excluded:
site:webproworld.com kgun -The-Castle-Breakroom
as indicated by the end of this:
http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-fo ... y-Topic%29
URL.
7,240 results not so bad compared to 7591 posts outside the WPW breakroom.
You should be able to find more about Google operators on this http://www.googleguide.com/ excellent site.