Non latin characters such as chineese and japanese will also be available to register. The internet corporation has not decided on a price structure yet but expect to pay more to register these domains

Bill veghte senior vice president of microsoft windows business group said in a letter “windows vista is a very significant step forward, but our customers made it clear that they want broader support for devices and applications in order to enjoy the experience”. Well why give us an os we can’t use our apps on and does not support our hardware??

The letter also promised windows 7 (There next os to be released) will be released 3 years after the january 2007 release date for vista

Answer : right click on the desktop abd select personalize. Left click on the screensaver title, click in the box labelled wait and enter the number of minutes you want to wait for the screensave to become active. Click on ok to save the changes. Windows xp is very right click on the desktop and select properties, click on the screensaver tab and change the number of minutes you want for your delay.

Contents
1 - What files do I need to backup in windows xp
2 – Tips for windows xp backups
3 – How to backup files in windows xp
4 - Backup FAQs

1- What files do I need to backup in windows xp
Backup My Documents – By default when you click on file > save as in an application it will default to saving the files in your my documents.  So it is very important to backup my documents as this is where all of your personal data will sit.
Backup E-mail Files – Backing up your emails is very important, None of us would like to loose all of our e-mails. Outlook .pst files (The file where all your e-mails are kept) are known for becoming corrupt quite frequently, Also when they get to 2gig in size there is a high chance they will get corrupt. 
Backup System Files – I dont think its very important to backup the system files, As long as you take an “Image” of your system I think this is enough.  But it is always a good idea to backup everything if you can just to be on the safe side.
Backup Misc Data Files – You might have created a folder and keep files in there. If you have make sure you remember the location so we can back it up.
Backup System Registry – The windows xp system registry keeps all the information of your system, config / programs installed and so on.  Sometimes you might go in to the registry and accidentally the wrong keys, or it is possible that the registry becomes corrupt.
Backup Desktop Icons – Do you save documents to your desktop?? If yes you will need to backup your desktop.
Backup Internet Favourites – Do you have many Internet favourites / bookmarks saved??
Backup Internet Cookies – You might want to backup these up as well, they store passwords for certain sites,  It is possible you might delete the cookie then forget the password to your site.

2 – Tips for windows xp backups
Here are a few tips on how you can have a successful and safe backup
1. Backup the files to a different media. For example if your files are stored on one hard-drive back them up to another hard-drive, because if you back them up to the same hard-drive and that hard drive fails you have lost all your data.
2. Backup files to more than one media, for example backup your files to another hard-disk then to a tape.  If you have a years worth of backups on one hard-drive and that drive crashes you will lose all your years backups.
3. If your backups fail check the logs and find out why!! In my experience backups fail mostly because of corrupt files, run a check disk on the computer the files are on.
4. Test your backups, every now and then restore some data and check if all the files are there and that you can use them.  The last thing you want to do is restore the files in an emergency and find out there is a problem.
5. Run regular backups,  Every day if you can.
6. Make sure you have plenty of spare disk space to store your backups on.
7. Backing up to tape? Make sure you label your tapes correctly. And try not to put lots of backups on one tape, If that tape is faulty you could lose all your backups
8. Create a backup schedule and monitor it to make sure backups are finishing successfully and also on time.
9. How to access the built in windows xp backup package.

If you have Windows XP Professional, Backup utility is installed by default but in Windows XP Home it is not. However, Backup utility is provided with the CD.
Go to CD-ROM Drive:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP and double click Ntbackup.msi to start the Backup utility.

Follow this procedure to backup data using Backup utility:
Step 1: Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Files and Settings’ in the second page.
Step 3: In the third page, you will be asked what to backup. If you have the habit of keeping all important files in your ‘My Documents’ folder and you want to backup only important files then choosing ‘My documents and settings’ would be more appropriate. Else if you want to manually choose the files and folders you want to backup, choose the option ‘Let me choose what to backup’.
Step 4: If you are manually choosing the folders, click all the folders you want to backup.
Step 5: On the next screen you will be asked to choose the backup type, Destination and Name. You won’t be using Tapes or Floppy Disks. You may select an external hard disk or another partition in the same hard disk. If the backup file size is small you may choose small portable pen drive such as USB hard drives.
Step 6: Windows XP does not support to write the backup file to a CD directly. So if you want to have the backup in a CD or DVD, create the backup file in the same hard disk and burn it in a CD or DVD.
If you have dedicated external hard disk for backup you can set a schedule to backup regularly. On the last page of backup utility before clicking Finish, Click Advanced -> When to Back up -> Later -> Set Schedule -> Schedule Job. Set the schedule and Click Ok.

3 – How to backup files in windows xp

How to backup every file in windows xp
Backup Method 1 – Image your install of windows xp, This is what I would recommend doing to backup windows xp.
  Using a program called Norton ghost it is possible to take an entire copy of your system, this means if one day your windows xp wont boot you can fix this by loading the image of your system that you took before the error occurred.  Norton ghost you will have to pay for, there are also free alternatives but I have not tried any out, search for them on google.
  To take an image of your windows xp do the following.  Install the ghost program, Next open the program and click on “Norton ghost boot wizard” select standard boot wizard > next,  then no usb support (Im not to sure about this option, Even theo you select no usb support you can still use usb??) and click next.  Select use pc dos and next. Dont enter any parameters and click next. Select your floppy drive then click next.
  Dont have a floppy drive?? Then create a bootable usb stick or CD-ROM and make sure you copy the ghost.exe file to it.  Now boot to the device and type in  ghost.exe at the command prompt.
  This will start the ghost program.  Now in the menu select Local > Disk > To Image.  Then select where you want to save the image.  I would recommend saving to a separate hard-drive, CD-ROM or usb storage.  Simply select the drive you want to save to, then down the bottom type in what file name you want to give it. Then click ok,  Make sure you select high compression.
  Now if you want to restore an image boot to the ghost program, Then select from the menu  Local > Disk > From Image.  Then browse to where you saved the image and click ok.  The next screen will ask you how big you want your partitions, by default they will show as per what you had before you took the image, so you dont need to edit this setting just click next.  Warning reloading an image will overwrite everything on your system, only do so if you are sure you need to.

Backup Method 2 - Use the built in windows xp backup program. 

Step 1: Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Files and Settings’ in the second page.
Step 3: Select “All information on this computer” click next
Step 4: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “System Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 5: Click Finish

Backup Method 3 - Use XCOPY to backup files in windows xp.

Using xcopy it is possible to backup every file on your system but I do not recommend using this method as it can be a bit complicated and you are better off using the build in backup program for windows xp.
  To access xcopy click on start > run > type in cmd and press enter. Now in the black window type in  “xcopy /?” without the “.  This will give you all the available options to you.  You will need to run something like the following

xcopy C:\ D:\ /s /c /q /g /h /r /o /y

The C:\ drive is your source and the D:\ drive is the destination that you are backing up to. If possible I would recommend that the D: drive is a different physical disk. If you run the above command it will backup everything on your C: drive automatically, I would recommend running this command 2 or three times just to make sure all of your data has been backed up. 

How to backup my documents in windows xp
Backup Method 1 – Use the built in windows xp backup program. Click the start menu then programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup.  Select next > select Backup Files and settings, Next > Select my documents and settings, Next > Click on browse and select a location to backup your my documents to, I would recommend backing up your data to a different physical disk / media if possible. Type a name for the backup, Give it a structured name such as  “My Documents Backup 01/02/2008″ So it will make it easier for you if you wish to restore your data. > Click next then finish.

Backup Method 2 - Manually backup the files. Right click on the my documents folder on your desktop and select copy, then paste the files on to another location on your system. If you keep a large amount of data in your my documents folder I would recommend using method 1 or 3.

Backup Method 3 - Use xcopy to backup your my documents.  If you have a large amount of data in your my documents folder I would recommend backing up your data using the xcopy command as it is a more reliable way of backing data up than using method 2.
  To access xcopy click on start > run > type in cmd and press enter. Now in the black window type in 

xcopy “%userprofile%\My Documents” “D:\Backup\” /s /c /q /g /h /r /o /y

  This will copy all your my documents data to D:\Backup\ if you want to change where the data is being backed up to simply change D:\Backup to point to where you want.

How to backup Outlook / E-mails
  To be able to backup your e-mails you need to know where your .pst file is and what it is named as (Your .pst file is the file that stores all of your e-mails). Go in to the control panel, Start > Settings > Control Panel, and then click on mail. Then click on Data Files, Now note down the full path and file name of the .pst file. 
  Is there no .pst file there?? or you think you might be using another .pst file?? Then we can search your whole computer for .pst files. Click on start > Search > For files and folders. Click on the “All files and folders” link on the left, then in the top search box enter   *.pst    and then click enter.  Note down all the paths and file names of all your .pst files.

Backup Method 1 - Manually copy the pst files.  Make sure your outlook is closed down, because if it is open outlook will have a lock on the .pst file and the backup should fail. Using explorer browse to where the pst file is located, right click on it and select copy, then paste it in to another location and preferably on a different physical hard-drive / media.

Backup Method 2 - Use the build in windows xp backup program. Click start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup, Click Backup wizard / next, select backup selected files, Next, Now browse to where the .pst file is located and tick the box next to it, Click Next.  Select a folder where you want to backup the .pst file to, I recommend backing up to another physical hard-drive or removable media.  Give the backup job a good name, for example something like “E-mail backup 01/01/2008″ so if you need to restore you can easily identify which backup you will need to use. Click next then finish and the backup will now run.

Backup Method 3 - Use xcopy, using windows xp  xcopy it is possible to backup your .pst file. Click on the start menu then run and type in cmd and press enter, then in the black window type in the following.

xcopy C:\myemails.pst D:\Data\ /c /f /g /h /i

Replace C:\myemails.pst  with the location and full name of your .pst file,  And also replace D:\Data\ with the folder you wish to copy to.

How to backup System Files
Backup Method 1 – Image your install of windows xp, This is what I would recommend doing to backup windows xp.
  Using a program called Norton ghost it is possible to take an entire copy of your system, this means if one day your windows xp wont boot you can fix this by loading the image of your system that you took before the error occurred.  Norton ghost you will have to pay for, there are also free alternatives but I have not tried any out, search for them on google.
  To take an image of your windows xp do the following.  Install the ghost program, Next open the program and click on “Norton ghost boot wizard” select standard boot wizard > next,  then no usb support (Im not to sure about this option, Even theo you select no usb support you can still use usb??) and click next.  Select use pc dos and next. Dont enter any parameters and click next. Select your floppy drive then click next.
  Dont have a floppy drive?? Then create a bootable usb stick or CD-ROM and make sure you copy the ghost.exe file to it.  Now boot to the device and type in  ghost.exe at the command prompt.
  This will start the ghost program.  Now in the menu select Local > Disk > To Image.  Then select where you want to save the image.  I would recommend saving to a separate hard-drive, CD-ROM or usb storage.  Simply select the drive you want to save to, then down the bottom type in what file name you want to give it. Then click ok,  Make sure you select high compression.
  Now if you want to restore an image boot to the ghost program, Then select from the menu  Local > Disk > From Image.  Then browse to where you saved the image and click ok.  The next screen will ask you how big you want your partitions, by default they will show as per what you had before you took the image, so you dont need to edit this setting just click next.  Warning reloading an image will overwrite everything on your system, only do so if you are sure you need to.

Backup Method 2 - Use the built in windows xp backup program. 

Step 1: Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Files and Settings’ in the second page.
Step 3: Select “All information on this computer” click next
Step 4: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “System Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 5: Click Finish

How to backup Misc Data
Backup Method 1 - Manually copy the data.  Browse to where the data is then on the root folder right click and select copy, then browse to where you want to copy the files to and right click and select paste.

Backup Method 2 - Use the built in backup program for windows xp

Step 1: Click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Files and Settings’ in the second page.
Step 3: Select “Backup select files” click next
Step 4: Select the files you want to backup, Click Next
Step 5: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “System Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 6: Click Finish and the backup will start to run.

Backup Method 3 - Use xcopy, using windows xp  xcopy it is possible to backup your misc data. Click on the start menu then run and type in cmd and press enter, then in the black window type in the following.

xcopy C:\mydata\*.* D:\Data\ /c /f /g /h /i

The above command will copy all data in the “mydata” folder.  Change the C:\mydata\ to where your data is located, Also change  D:\Data  to where you want the backup to go to. 

How to backup System Registry
Backup Method 1 - In windows NT, 2000 and XP not possible to back up registry files while the operating system is running. Registry files remain fully locked all the time while Windows is running,  But here You can use an integrated Windows XP’s System Restore feature for registry backup.

But using registry editor (regedit.exe) you  can to export partial or complete copies of the registry, while the Windows is up, and the exported files can then be backed up with any other traditional file backup utility. You can follow these simple steps to back up the whole registry or any particular registry subkey:

• Click Start button and then type Regedit in Run option.

• Locate and then click the root subkey that contains all the child subkeys and values that you want to back up.

• On the File menu, click Export.

• In the Save box, you can select the location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg) file, type a file name in the File name box, and then click Save.

The exported registry file is about 10-50 MB in size on a typical Windows NT/2000/XP installation.

How to backup desktop icons
Backup Method 1 - Manually copy the files. Right click on your start menu and select explore. Then just under the folder that is named the same as your login there will be a desktop folder.  Right click on this folder and select copy, then paste the files in the location you want the backup to be.

Backup Method 2 - Use the built in backup program for windows xp

Step 1: Click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Select backup wizard, Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Selected files’ in the second page.
Step 3: Tick all the files on the right hand side, Click Next
Step 4: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “Desktop Files Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 5: Click Finish and the backup will start to run.

Backup Method 3 - Use xcopy, using windows xp  xcopy it is possible to backup your desktop data. Click on the start menu then run and type in cmd and press enter, then in the black window type in the following.

xcopy “%userprofile%\Desktop” “D:\Data\” /c /f /g /h

The above command will backup all data in the desktop folder.  Change the D:\Data to where you want the backup to go to. 

How to backup Internet Favourites
Backup Method 1 - Internet Explorer - Open Internet Explorer, in the menu at the top click on File > Import and Export. To save it just choose a backup location. To restore it navigate to that backup location.

Backup Method 2 - Manually copy the files. Right click on your start menu and select explore. Then just under the folder that is named the same as your login there will be a favourites folder.  Right click on this folder and select copy, then paste the files in the location you want the backup to be.

Backup Method 3 - Use the built in backup program for windows xp

Step 1: Click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Select backup wizard, Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Selected files’ in the second page.
Step 3: Browse to C:\Document and Settings\%Username% and tick the box next to the favourites folder, Click next
Step 4: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “Favourites Files Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 5: Click Finish and the backup will start to run.

Backup Method 4 - Use xcopy, using windows xp  xcopy it is possible to backup your favourites. Click on the start menu then run and type in cmd and press enter, then in the black window type in the following.

xcopy “%userprofile%\Favourites” “D:\Data\” /c /f /g /h

The above command will backup all data in the desktop folder.  Change the D:\Data to where you want the backup to go to. 

How to backup Internet Cookies
Backup Method 1 - Manually copy the files. Right click on your start menu and select explore. Then just under the folder that is named the same as your login there will be a cookies folder.  Right click on this folder and select copy, then paste the files in the location you want the backup to be.

Backup Method 2 - Use the built in backup program for windows xp

Step 1: Click Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
Step 2: Select backup wizard, Click Next in the first page and choose ‘Back up Selected files’ in the second page.
Step 3: Browse to C:\Document and Settings\%Username% and tick the box next to the cookies folder, Click next
Step 4: Enter a location, I recommend using another media (Hard-disk, Tape drive) from what you are backing up. Give a good name for the backup like “Cookies Files Backup 25 June 2008” so you can identify later exactly what the backup is. Click next.
Step 5: Click Finish and the backup will start to run.

Backup Method 3- Use xcopy, using windows xp  xcopy it is possible to backup your cookies. Click on the start menu then run and type in cmd and press enter, then in the black window type in the following.

xcopy “%userprofile%\Cookies” “D:\Data\” /c /f /g /h

The above command will backup all data in the desktop folder.  Change the D:\Data to where you want the backup to go to. 

4 - Backup FAQs

Q. What media can I backup my files to?
A. There are many devices / media you can back up to, below is a list of them
Another physical hard-disk - I prefer to use this backup media as backups run faster than backing up to tapes. Warning Never back up data to the same physical disk, If that disk dies you will lose all your data and all your backups.
Tape Drive - You can attach an external / internal tape drive to your system to back your files up to
USB Stick - If you dont have much data you can backup your data to a USB stick. I believe the largest usb stick around at time of writing (09/07/2008) is 32gig
External USB Hard-Drive - These are very cheap these days,
CD-ROM - You can use your CD-ROM it is it a writer.
Another Computer - Can you map a drive to another computer??

Q. How do I access the built in backup program in windows vista??
A. In Vista taking a backup is much easier than Windows XP. Vista allows taking backup in CD and DVD as well.

Follow this procedure to backup data using Backup utility:
Step 1: Go to Control Panel -> ‘Backup and Restore Centre’ and Choose Backup Files.
Step 2: Windows will search all possible places where you can take a backup copy and it will list it the next screen. If you want to take the backup in the network, you can browse and choose the destination for backup.
Step 3: Choose the drives you want to backup and choose the type of files you want to backup. System files, executable files won’t be backed up and backup can be done only from NTFS region.
Step 4: In the next screen choose how often you want to take backup and click ‘Save settings and start backup’.

Every ISP has at least two DNS servers that you connect to whilst browsing the internet, Most of the time these DNS settings are automatically populated by the ISP through DHCP. (DHCP automatically assigns network settings to your computer such as, IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, dns servers.)  But some times due to high usage it is possible that your ISP DNS servers might go slow.

So how can we achieve faster Internet browsing by changing your DNS ?? Well if we change your DNS settings some DNS servers might resolve domain names faster for you than your ISP.  A good place to start is http://www.opendns.com reguardless of what isp you use opendns.com will give you there ip addresses to use there DNS servers.  There are also other alternatives, search for them in google.

Visit http://www.opendns.com and get the ip address of two dns servers,  then in windows open the control panel, double click on “Network connections” select your network connection (If you are using a wireless connection the connection will be called something like “Wireless connection” if you are not it will be called something like “Local area connection”) right click on your connection and select properties, in the next window select “use the following DNS server addresses” now enter the two ip addresses here.  If you want to change back to your ISPs DNS servers at a later time select “Obtain DNS server address automatically”.

Good luck and happy browsing

To fix this error “MSVBVM60.DLL is missing or corrupt” you can download and install the visual basic 6 service pack located at http://tinyurl.com/38b4kc

Introduction : How To SEO Vbulletin

Hi and welcome to my guide “How to SEO Vbulletin” In this guide I am going to show you how to SEO your vbulletin forum as well as show you how to increase the number of visitors you get. Before we start I recommend upgrading to the latest version of vbulletin if possible, if not please upgrade to at least version 3.5.** I also recommend installing vbulletin to the root of your website and not in a folder such as forums/. Please read my disclaimer at the bottom of the page in red before you make any changes to your website.

What is SEO? SEO Is short for Search Engine Optimisation. Why is it important to SEO your site?? The answer is simple to attract more people to visit your site by getting your Internet pages ranking higher in search engines. Vbulletin is by far the best forum software available on the net and equally it has the best SEO options.  So lets get going

Contents
1 - First Steps – How to rewrite Your Vbulletin URLS
2 - Configure Your Robots.txt file
3 - How to setup your google site map
4 - Template changes within Vbulletin
5 - Generating Traffic to your site
6 – Write unique articles and advertise them

1 - First Steps – How to rewrite Your Vbulletin URLS
  The first thing you need to do is configure the urls for SEO, The more of your web pages you get in to search engines the more visitors you are likely to receive to your site.  By default Vbulletin has urls like http://mysite.com/showthread.php?t=28969 now these urls are not good as search engines doesn’t seem to like pages that include certain symbols such as ? and =. Ideally we want our urls to look like http://mysite.com/this-is-the-title.html Having the title of the page in the actual url helps your site get better SEO results. Now we need to choose an add on to help us re-write these urls.

  To be able to re-write urls you need something called MOD-rewrite, Check with your web hosting company if this feature is installed.  There are a few different mod_rewrite solutions out there, I would highly recommend using vbseo, I have personally used all three of the below and I have seen the best results by far with vbseo, VBSEO costs $160 but is highly worth it!! some url re-writing addins are:
vbseo - the most powerful and easy to install. Also include ping features - but costs $160.
Zoints SEO - this one is free but has fewer features, and requires some manual set up
Daniweb mod_rewrite - another free one, this requires quite a bit of template editing

2- Configure Your Robots.txt file
  Some times search engines will try to index pages we know it will have problems with, How we get around this is to create a file called robots.txt and upload it to the root of our web server, In this file we can tell a search engine what pages not to look at when they are finding pages to index.  You can also tell the search engine where your “Site map” is located which I believe is very important.  Below is an example of what should be in your robots.txt file.

Robots.txt example

User-agent: * sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml Disallow: /forums/archive/ Disallow: /forums/admincp/ Disallow: /forums/attachments/ Disallow: /forums/calendar.php Disallow: /forums/clientscript/ Disallow: /forums/cpstyles/ Disallow: /forums/customavatars/ Disallow: /forums/customprofilepics/ Disallow: /forums/faq.php Disallow: /forums/images/ Disallow: /forums/install/ Disallow: /forums/includes/ Disallow: /forums/login.php Disallow: /forums/misc.php Disallow: /forums/member.php Disallow: /forums/modcp/ Disallow: /forums/memberlist.php Disallow: /forums/newreply.php Disallow: /forums/newthread.php Disallow: /forums/private.php Disallow: /forums/register.php Disallow: /forums/sendmessage.php Disallow: /forums/signaturepics/ Disallow: /forums/sendpm.php Disallow: /forums/search.php

Note : If your forum is not located in the /forums/ directory then change it accordingly. Also replace the site map url to where your site map is located on your site.

3 - How to setup your google site map
  vBSEO has also released a vBulletin Google sitemap that tells Google about all the url’s on the forum - both the old urls and the new rewritten url’s. Installing this addin is a must, this will help google find and index the most important pages on your site, and your site will get indexed much faster than if you didnt have a sitemap. When you install this addin it will notify google automatically about your sitemap every day. You can download the sitemap generator by going to http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=144730 

Now we need to configure the sitemap to exclude certain urls, login to the vbulletin admincp and click on “Vbulletin Options > Vbulletin Options > VBSEO Goole/Yahoo Sitemap generator” and change the following settings.

Include show post pages = no
Include member profile pages = no
Include archive pages = Yes for the first few months, then if you have VBSEO installed 301 / redirect these pages to the main pages.

4 - Template changes within Vbulletin
  I recommend making the following template changes to help SEO your site.  NOTE : Backup your templates before you edit them so you can restore them if needed.  To backup your templates go to your admincp and click on “Styles and Templates” > “Download / Upload Styles” select your style then click download and save to your computer.

The aim of modifying your vbulletin templates is to make the text / words / pictures on your page relevant to your thread title, so we are going to add a few things that will repeat the the text of your title.  Beware if you repeat the title text to many times search engines might see it as spam and penalise your site.  If you follow the below modifications your site will be okay.

First we want to configure the websites title / keywords and description. In your admincp click on “Vbulletin Options” > “Vbulletin Options” > “Site Name / URL / Contact details” Then under “Forum Name” enter a name which is relevant to your site, also try to make this 3-5 words long.  Next select “General Options” from the drop down box, Enter 5 “Meta Keys” that are relevant to your site, for example if my site is about computers I would enter  “Computer,PC,computing,laptop”  Next Enter a description for your site, try to keep this around 10 words.

Navbar Vbulletin Template Modifications
I have changed the navbar so that the breadcrumb title is highlighted to <h1>

Go to Style Manager/Main CSS – and add to the “Additional CSS definitions”
Code:

.showthreadh1 { font-family:verdana, geneva, lucida, ‘lucida grande’, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin:0; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;    display: inline; }

Then in the navbar template find
Code:

<strong>$vboptions[bbtitle]</strong>

And replace with
Code:

<h1 class=”showthreadh1″>$navbits[lastelement]</h1>

With the root url, make sure this points to the root of your site / instead of /index.php

In the navbar i usually add a picture and configure the alt tags.  This has been proven to help seo ranking. You can see an example of this on my site www.onlinepctalk.com click on a thread / topic on the site then hover your mouse over the picture in the top left hand corner. Enter the following in to the navbar template

Code:

<img border=”0″ src=http://www.onlinepctalk.com/picname.jpg width=”92″ height=”92″ longdesc=”PC Talk Forums - $thread[title] $foruminfo[title]” alt=”$thread[title] $foruminfo[title]”>

Replace the location of your picture and the size of the frame.

Postbit Vbulletin Template Modifications
In the postbit template add the line
Code:

$thread[title]

This will repeat the title of the thread every time someone posts on this thread, Personally I added this code after the line $post[posttime] but you might want to place it somewhere else as your site might have a different layout. If you want to see an example of this take a look at the page www.onlinepctalk.com/showthread.php?t=1070

Other Optional Vbulletin Template Modifications
Somewhere on your page, around the middle if possible add the following code
Code:

<h2>Welcome to PC Talk - $thread[title]</h2>

Replace “Welcome to PC Talk – with what ever you want. 

It is also a good idea to include the following code in your footer, But make sure you use a different sentence as you did above for the </h2>
Code:

Thanks for visiting this site, hope you found $thread[title] useful

Somewhere on every page create a link to every forum category you have created, this will help these pages increase there PR status within search engines. On my site www.onlinepctalk.com I have created these links in the left column under the google ads.  I would recommend using the same name as the forum for the link as this is more likely to make your pages rank higher in search engines for the key words. 

Another good tip for SEO is to remove the “Powered by Vbulletin” which appears in some titles of pages.  Go to your ADMINCP> Language & Phrases> Search in Phrases
In your Phrases Search for: x_powered_by_vbulletin (be sure to choose to search by Phrase Text and Phrase Variable Name)
Edit the phrase. Simply change it from {1} - Powered by vBulletin
to {1}
SO your just deleting - Powered by vBulletin

 
5 - Generating Traffic to your site
  Now you have made the SEO changes to your vbulletin board you need to know how to attract people to your site.  In the following guide I will assume you are creating a new site and starting from scratch,  Altheo you can use the below technique on existing sites with no problem. I setup two vbulletin sites a few years ago and SEO’d them differently and I saw a big difference between the two sites,  I will explain the difference below in each section.

Link equity
In my opinion you need to pay allot of attention to your link equity.  If you have allot of pages on your site but very little incoming links your link equity will be spread very thinly over your site and your more important high valued pages will not rank as well in search engines.  The crawl rate of your site might also reduce. A good way to make sure your lower value pages in vbulletin dont get indexed is to install a robots.txt file, (Which was explained earlier in this document.

With my two sites I did not setup a robots.txt file or configure the google sitemap to exclude certain pages on site A and this site was also getting a lot of signup’s and threads created daily,  I saw with this site it was very slow to index pages in google.  On site B there were not many signup’s or threads being created, I also installed a robots.txt file and I excluded certain pages from the google site map such as user profile pages,  This meant site B had far less pages than site A but I saw the pages on site B appear in google much faster.

Get your PR up
When ever I setup a new site the first thing I do is try to get the PR up.  In my opinion the higher PR your site has the faster it will be index by search engines and also it will rank better. 

To get a higher PR you basically need to put as many links as you can on other web pages linking back to your page. Make sure you dont spam other websites as your website could get black listed, instead use the methods below and build links steadily. When linking to your site it is very important to link back properly.  You need to pick a keyword and stick to it,  For example for this site when I link to the home page I always use the key words “Computing Tips” so on the other site your link should look like Computing Tips and not http://www.computing-tips.com this will help you rank well for the keyword Computing Tips in search engines. 

If possible get your link on other pages with PR as this will help you gain more PR. Try to get your link on sites that are relevant to yours, This site is about computing / computers so my link will have more weight if it was on another computing site than a site off topic such as health or sports site.  Now there are many ways you can get links to your site for SEO, Here is a list

Directory Submissions – Submit to directories, Take a look on digital point forums, You can pay 10usd for 1000-2000 manual directory submissions.  I think this is the best thing you can do for SEO as all links will require a title which I would put at Computing Tips then your url.  If you do use this service make sure you check the e-mail address you supplied as most sites will ask you to verify the submission.

Blog Posting – Post comments on blogs. This is a good way to get relevant links back to your site, in google, do a search for relevant sites to yours by typing something like “Computing Blogs” in to google and then find blogs to post on.  Make sure you post something relevant to the article or your link is more likely to be deleted or not approved by the moderator.

Forum Posting – Sign up to forums that are similar to yours and put a link to your site in the footer. With some forums you can add up to 4 links so you can also link to sub pages.

Link Exchanges – Visit some webmaster forums and look for link exchange partners. I usually do this when my site gets PR as you can request link partners websites to also have similar PR.  I usually look for site wide exchanges, If you want to exchange site wide links check how many pages there site has in a search engine, to do this go to a search engine and type in site:http://www.theurl.com so for this site it will be site:http://www.computing-tips.com the more links in search engines they have the better for your site. Visit digital point forums if you want to look for SEO link exchanges.

Social Networking Sites – I personally haven’t have much luck with them but some people have, submit your site to www.digg.com and you might get lucky There are also lots of other social networking sites, search google for them.

6 – Write unique articles and advertise them

  The best way to drive traffic to your site is to write articles and advertise them properly. Never copy articles from another site, Search engines will pick up on this (Duplicate content) and could possibly penalise you.  I will now show you how to write articles and SEO them.

  First decide what you want to write about, I will use this article I wrote as an example.  Then decide what phrase / title you want to give it.  I gave this article the title of “How to seo vbulletin” When you have decided what title you want to use do a search for it in google, if google returns over 1,000,000 results then it could be quite hard to reach high rankings, but anything under should be achievable.  We should be able to get you ranked in the top 10 for your article.

  Create a new thread and give it the title you want to target.  Now try to write an article 2000 with words,  In the first 2 or 3 paragraphs try to use the words from the title as much as possible, But dont make it look spammy. Then in the rest of the document try to use the words from the title in every other paragraph.  This will help boost the “Key words” relevancy to the page and will help your SEO.  Use Microsoft word / front page to check your spelling as some search engines will pick up on spelling mistakes.  Try to make your article as interesting as possible, If people like your article they are more likely to link to it from other sites.

  Once the article has been published we need to advertise it by posting links on other sites.  When linking back to the article remember to use the title as the link name for example the link to this article would be  How to SEO Vbulletin and not www.computing-tips.com this is very important.  Below is how I would link to this article on other sites.

Blog Posting – This is by far my best method of getting quality in-coming links.  Do a search in google for your phrase / title “How to SEO Vbulletin” and look for blogs , Some blogs will have pages with PR which will also help your article get PR. On blogs you can enter you name as the phrase / title of the article then under url enter the url of the article.  Then make sure you enter a quality comment as a spammy one might get deleted. Your comment will then be posted like this

Comment Example:

Posted by How to SEO Vbulletin Thanks for this article, I have now successfully SEO’d my vbulletin forum.

Forum Posting – This is also a very good way to get 100’s of pages to link to your article,  Simply put the link in your signature. Remember that most vbulletin forums let you have 4 urls, so what I do is link to 4 articles I have written.

Submit Article To Social Networking Sites – Again ive not had much success with this and can not really recommend this.

Link Exchanges – Not really worth the time and hassle, But will help, Search digital point forums for relevant link exchanges to your article.

If you follow the above steps I dont see any reason why your article can not rank in the top 10 in search engines. 
 
Disclaimer : Computing Tips.com can not be held responsible should you make any changes to your vbulletin forum and break your site.

Do you fall into this category? If so, are you taking advantage of everything Google offers?

If an internet search means you go to www.google.com and simply type 2 or 3 words into the search box, hoping to find what you’re looking for, you aren’t even scratching the surface.

How Can You Get Better Results?

Google is the number one search engine for good reason - their results are generally the most accurate. Even so, there are ways to pinpoint what you’re looking for even more effectively.

(more…)