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Link to a forum [message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 19:23 Go to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Hi all;

I am using the post_vars version of the templates and I will be need ing to link to a forum (I am converting from PHPbb, I have a forum for each article on my site and each article has a "jump to the forums" link.

Question is, what would a link to forum 2 look like?
Re: Link to a forum [message #14734 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 21:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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You want a link to a forum or a link to a topic?



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Re: Link to a forum [message #14738 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 21:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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I would want to link to a forum.

Also, I want to use the post_vars like I said, but I have an issue: there is a SQ value being passed in the path that will cause issues, as I use Google adsense, and adsense depends on having the same url passed every time so that it can retrieve a set of ads. What can I do to ensure that every user has the same path when using a post_vars template?

In PHPbb this was ok because navigation was a simple showforum.php?f=2 or showthread.php?t=147, and the Google database can handle it because the url is essentially static.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14739 is a reply to message #14738] Wed, 19 November 2003 21:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Hold on, you mean the PATH_INFO template base?

http://url_to_forum/index.php/f/[id_of_forum]/

Make sure you disable URL sessions & referal tracking if you intend to use that.


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Re: Link to a forum [message #14742 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Ok, I meant PATH_INFO, just a bad day for my brain.

Ok, session URLs are off, referrer check is off, and track referrals is off, but my URLs still look like this:

http://www.vbmysql.com/fudtest/index.php/f/2/?SQ=1069278998

Any ideas?
Re: Link to a forum [message #14744 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Sorry for all the questions, I really want to use this system and just need to clear a few hurdles first.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14745 is a reply to message #14742] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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SQ will always be present for logged in users... it is necessary security measure and at this time there is no way to disable it.

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Re: Link to a forum [message #14747 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Ok, I see that it is set to SQ=0 when a user is not logged in. Hmm, any way that it could not make links ?SQ=0 for a non logged in user? If so then a spider and non-login user would see

http://www.vbmysql.com/fudtest/index.php/t/839

And that would be very spider friendly.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14749 is a reply to message #14747] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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Yes, that's on my todo list.

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Re: Link to a forum [message #14751 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Ok, good, but I realize it will not actually solve my problem. You have a superior project here. I really like it, but I like the money that the Google Adsense provides too, and since a large percentage of my hits come from the forums, I need the googlebots to find the pages, and that means the URLs that make up the forums have to be consistent.

If a user browses to a thread, the call for an ad results in a generic ad if Google has nothing for the request URL in the database. It will then fire off a spider and within a minute the next request for the same URL will result in a page-specific set of ads instead of the generic one. The problem is this: My logged-in users will always get the generic ad (which makes no money) because each and every one of them will see a different URL. The only way in this case for them to see targeted ads would eb multiple visits to the same page.

Now I am guessing the SQ section is there to prevent session hijacking and XSS, but I personally would prefer to balance decreased security with the ability to use Google adsense.

Anyhow, I am going to investigate alternate solutions and have contacted Google support to look for a solution. If there was a way to have a web browser strip the dynamic portion before making a request to google I would have something. This for example is the gode added to a google page:

<script TYPE="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-2660766695269970";
google_alternate_ad_url = "http://www.vbmysql.com/includes/amazon.html";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 90;
google_ad_format = "728x90_as";
google_color_border = "2184BD";
google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";
google_color_link = "666666";
google_color_url = "000000";
google_color_text = "000000";
//--></SCRIPT>
<script TYPE="text/javascript"
  SRC="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</SCRIPT>


I am pretty sure that Google operates by taking the referrerid as the page ads are needed for, and if I can get a browser to modify it and remove the trailing ?SQ portion then Google's bots will be happy. I shall have to talk to my Javascript experts.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14752 is a reply to message #14751] Wed, 19 November 2003 22:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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You are correct, SQ is needed to prevent session hijacking and other nasty tricks that could be used. XSS issues are something else and the protection for them is else where.

I suppose you could modify the code to not do SQ completely by changing the code inside users.inc.t. But given the security issues it creates it is not something I would like to allow people to disable normally.

The real solution may be a clever JavaScript hack of sorts. I've looked at the google JavaScript and the URL handling code appears to be:
if (window.google_page_url == null) {
google_page_url = document.referrer;
if (window.top.location == document.location) {
google_page_url = document.location;
}
}

So, maybe you can use JavaScript to modify the value of document.referrer & document.location removing the SQ bit internally to allow for common URL.

Check on Google's support site, I am almost certain such issues have come up before and there maybe solutions I haven't even considered.


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Re: Link to a forum [message #14755 is a reply to message #14728] Wed, 19 November 2003 23:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Yes, it would certainly be something only the informed should be able to disable. I have contacted my Javascript expects and Google support, and I will be looking for a workaround that preserves your security measures, and may manually disable SQ as a VERY last resort.

Thanks for much for your help, especially with upgrading the PHPbb converter. I can see why FUDforum is Rasmus's reccomended PHP forum.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14784 is a reply to message #14728] Thu, 20 November 2003 19:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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It looks like I may hit a wall with this from the provider end. What modifications would I need to make to drop SQ from the system? If you want you can PM or email me instead of posting here, as this is the kind of thing that you do not want to do lightly.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14785 is a reply to message #14784] Thu, 20 November 2003 19:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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What you need to do is this, all the changes affect a single file, users.inc.t

Near the top of the file find comment which says "/* define constants used to track URL sessions & referrals */". Below it remove references to SQ from the constants being defined. Then find function sq_check() near the bottom of the file and make it always return 1. That's about it.

Keep in mind that you are compromising the forum's security, potentially allowing all kinds of mischief.


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Re: Link to a forum [message #14786 is a reply to message #14728] Thu, 20 November 2003 20:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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I understand the risks involved in things like potential session hijacking.

Thanks,
Mike
Re: Link to a forum [message #14801 is a reply to message #14728] Thu, 20 November 2003 23:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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Ok, I commented out the entire block, but my URL now looks like this:

http://www.vbmysql.com/fudtrial/index.php?t=index&_rsid

Any ideas on getting rid of the _rsid part?
Re: Link to a forum [message #14802 is a reply to message #14801] Thu, 20 November 2003 23:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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You need to disable "referrals tracking" not to be confused with referrer tracking.

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Re: Link to a forum [message #14810 is a reply to message #14728] Fri, 21 November 2003 02:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Squeebee is currently offline  Squeebee   Canada
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I actually have them both off. Any chance you can send me a copy with things commented as they should? Maybe I am missing something.

Anyway, I will be making the switch tonite! Thanks for all your help.
Re: Link to a forum [message #14811 is a reply to message #14810] Fri, 21 November 2003 03:04 Go to previous message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
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If you are seeing &_rsid in the actual URL, it probably means you didn't modify users.inc.t correctly. Normaly it would appear as &rid=[number]

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