MyBB 1.8 provides built-in support for Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs, which can aid in optimizing communities for search engine ranking.

Requirements

• Apache HTTP server with mod_rewrite enabled OR nginx web server

• Apache: Access to server configuration OR ability to use .htaccess files to override configuration options.

• Nginx: Access to server configuration

Setup

Apache (includes cPanel)

1. In MYBB_ROOT, rename htaccess.txt (provided with all MyBB downloads) to .htaccess.
2. Navigate to your MyBB Admin Control Panel -> Configuration -> Server and Optimization Settings. Set Enable search engine friendly URLs? to Enabled or Automatic Detection.
3. Verify that you can browse to various forums and threads without errors.

nginx

Configuring SEF URLs for an nginx server requires some knowledge of editing a much broader configuration file that controls everything served by the same virtual host.

1. Edit the configuration for the virtual host that serves your MyBB community, then add the following to the location / block, ensuring that occurrences of MyBB below are replaced with the directory of your MyBB installation, if necessary:

    rewrite ^/MyBB/forum-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/forumdisplay.php?fid=$1;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/forum-([0-9]+)-page-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/forumdisplay.php?fid=$1&page=$2;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-page-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&page=$2;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-lastpost\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&action=lastpost;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-nextnewest\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&action=nextnewest;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-nextoldest\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&action=nextoldest;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-newpost\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&action=newpost;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/thread-([0-9]+)-post-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?tid=$1&pid=$2;
   
    rewrite ^/MyBB/post-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/showthread.php?pid=$1;
   
    rewrite ^/MyBB/announcement-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/announcements.php?aid=$1;
   
    rewrite ^/MyBB/user-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/member.php?action=profile&uid=$1;
   
    rewrite ^/MyBB/calendar-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?calendar=$1;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/calendar-([0-9]+)-year-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?action=yearview&calendar=$1&year=$2;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/calendar-([0-9]+)-year-([0-9]+)-month-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?calendar=$1&year=$2&month=$3;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/calendar-([0-9]+)-year-([0-9]+)-month-([0-9]+)-day-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?action=dayview&calendar=$1&year=$2&month=$3&day=$4;
    rewrite ^/MyBB/calendar-([0-9]+)-week-(n?[0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?action=weekview&calendar=$1&week=$2;
   
    rewrite ^/MyBB/event-([0-9]+)\.html$ /MyBB/calendar.php?action=event&eid=$1;
   

2. Navigate to your MyBB Admin Control Panel -> Configuration -> Server and Optimization Settings. Set Enable search engine friendly URLs? to Enabled or Automatic Detection.
3. Verify that you can browse to various forums and threads without errors.

Troubleshooting

If the above steps did not work, check your server error log (in cPanel: “Error Log” usually) for any log entries added at the time you tested the changes. Ask your web host for help, or create a support thread on the MyBB Community Forums.

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