Modern SEO infrastructure for phpBB.
phpBB SEO Framework (Lite Edition v1.0.0) 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.ir/
- GitHub Repository: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- Web Server: Apache 2.4+ with
mod_rewriteenabled (verified for v1.0.0)
- Download the latest release package (
phpbb-seo-lite-1.0.0.zip) from the Releases page. - Unpack the archive and copy the folder contents to your phpBB board directory at:
ext/phpbbseo/framework/ - Copy
ext/phpbbseo/framework/rewrite.phpto your phpBB root directory (in the same directory asapp.phpandindex.php). - Ensure standard phpBB
.htaccessURL rewrite rules are active in your phpBB root. - In your phpBB Administration Control Panel (ACP), navigate to: Customise » Manage Extensions
- Locate phpBB SEO Framework under Disabled Extensions and click Enable.
- Navigate to the new SEO Framework tab in the ACP to configure your settings.
- 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.txtdirectives.
phpBB SEO Framework is architected with a unified Shared Core foundation:
| Feature / Module | phpBB SEO Lite (v1.0.0) | 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.
- 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.
- Official Website: https://www.phpbbseo.ir/
- GitHub Repository: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework
- Issue Tracker: https://github.com/phpbb-seo/seo-framework/issues
phpBB SEO Framework is open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL-2.0-only).
Developed and maintained by phpBB SEO.
Copyright © 2026 phpBB SEO. All rights reserved.