phpBB SEO Framework

Modern SEO infrastructure for phpBB.

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Overview

phpBB SEO Framework (Lite Edition) is the official next-generation search engine optimization platform for phpBB 3.3.x boards. Built for high performance, clean software architecture, and web standards compliance, it provides a zero-SQL hot-path URL rewrite engine, dynamic metadata tools, and a keyset-based XML sitemap suite.

• Official Website: https://www.phpbbseo.com/
• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework

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Key Features

SEO URL Engine

• Zero SQL on Hot Path: Runtime outbound link rewriting via append_sid() executes with 0 database queries.
• Configurable Permalinks: Flexible URL pattern templates for Forums, Topics, Member Profiles, and Usergroups.
• Persistent Slug Index: Framework-owned persistent slug storage providing fast and deterministic URL resolution without modifying phpBB core tables.
• Automatic 301 Canonical Redirects: Seamlessly redirects legacy native URLs (viewtopic.php?t=123, viewforum.php?f=4) and renamed/stale slugs to current canonical URLs without search ranking loss.
• Safe Inbound Routing: Dedicated standalone pre-bootstrap router (rewrite.php) intercepting inbound clean URLs with minimal overhead.

Titles & Meta

• Custom Meta Titles & Descriptions: Configurable pattern-based title templates for Home, Forum, Topic, and Member Profile pages.
• Intelligent Text Normalization: Strips BBCode, smilies, quotes, and HTML entities to produce clean plain-text Unicode descriptions.
• Canonical Link Tags: Injects authoritative <link rel="canonical"> tags into every public resource.

XML Sitemap

• Standards Compliant: Generates dynamic Sitemaps Protocol 0.9 feeds for search engines (Google, Bing, Yandex).
• Zero-Offset Keyset Scalability: High-efficiency keyset streaming architecture capable of handling large topic catalogues with bounded (< 5 MB) memory usage and zero SQL offset overhead.
• Strict Anonymous ACL Isolation: Guarantees private and staff forums are never exposed in search sitemaps regardless of session state.
• Human-Readable XSL Styling: Responsive browser presentation (/sitemap.xsl) transforming raw XML feeds into styled dashboards.

Multilingual / Unicode Support

• Full UTF-8 Support: Native Unicode slug generation across Persian, Arabic, Cyrillic, Latin, and CJK alphabets.
• Fallback Transliteration: Graceful handling of diverse alphabets and character sets.

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Screenshots

SEO Dashboard

Permalink Manager

Titles & Meta

XML Sitemap

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Requirements

• phpBB: 3.3.0 or higher (tested and verified on phpBB 3.3.x)
• PHP: 8.1, 8.2, or 8.3 (tested and verified on PHP 8.2 & 8.3)
• Supported Web Servers:
  • Apache 2.4+ (with mod_rewrite enabled)
  • LiteSpeed
  • Nginx

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Installation

1. Download the latest phpbb-seo-lite-x.x.x.zip from the Releases page.

2. Extract and upload the extension so the final path is:

   ext/phpbbseo/framework/
   

3. Configure your web server rewrite rules:

   Apache / LiteSpeed

   Add the following rule to your phpBB root .htaccess file:

   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
       RewriteEngine On
   
       RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
       RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
       RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ext/phpbbseo/framework/rewrite.php [QSA,L]
   </IfModule>

   Nginx — phpBB installed at domain root

   Add the following directive inside your Nginx server block:

   location / {
       try_files $uri $uri/ /ext/phpbbseo/framework/rewrite.php?$query_string;
   }

   Nginx — phpBB installed in a subdirectory

   If phpBB is installed in a subdirectory (e.g. /forum/):

   location /forum/ {
       try_files $uri $uri/ /forum/ext/phpbbseo/framework/rewrite.php?$query_string;
   }

4. In your phpBB Administration Control Panel (ACP), navigate to: Customise » Manage Extensions

5. Locate phpBB SEO Framework under Disabled Extensions and click Enable.

6. Navigate to the new SEO Framework tab in the ACP to configure your settings.

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Configuration

• Dashboard: Displays extension status, active URL patterns, and system health metrics.
• Permalinks: Select URL presets or define custom permalink structures for forums, topics, users, and usergroups.
• Titles & Meta: Configure pattern tokens (e.g. {topic_title}, {forum_name}, {board_name}) and meta description lengths.
• XML Sitemap: Enable XML sitemaps, customize URLs per sitemap file, view live crawl statistics, and copy recommended robots.txt directives.

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Lite vs Pro

phpBB SEO Framework is architected with a unified Shared Core foundation:

Feature / Module	phpBB SEO Lite	phpBB SEO Pro (Planned)
Shared Core SEO URL Engine	✅ Included	✅ Included
Persistent Slug Index	✅ Included	✅ Included
Canonical Redirections (301)	✅ Included	✅ Included
Configurable Permalinks	✅ Included	✅ Included
Titles & Meta Engine	✅ Included	✅ Included
XML Sitemap Suite	✅ Included	✅ Included
Multilingual / Unicode Slugs	✅ Included	✅ Included
OpenGraph & Social Cards	❌ Planned	✅ Pro
JSON-LD Schema & Rich Data	❌ Planned	✅ Pro
404 & Redirect Manager	❌ Planned	✅ Pro
On-Page SEO Analyzer	❌ Planned	✅ Pro

Pro features will extend the same Shared Core APIs without duplicate URL generation systems or separate routing tables.

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Migrating from Legacy USU

• Existing Ultimate SEO URL (USU) installations should NOT replace USU blindly.
• USU and phpBB SEO Framework use fundamentally different internal architectures.
• A documented migration path will be provided separately in an upcoming guide.
• For existing installations depending on historical USU URLs, maintain the legacy repository at https://github.com/phpbb-seo/usu.

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Documentation & Support

• Official Website: https://www.phpbbseo.com/
• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework
• Issue Tracker: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework/issues

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License

phpBB SEO Framework is open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL-2.0-only).

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Credits / Project

Developed and maintained by phpBB SEO.
Copyright © 2026 phpBB SEO. All rights reserved.