[Kall]

Does your forum 'fail to fly'?

Has it reached the point where it is starting to slow down and you don't (or can't) upgrade your Hosting?

Optimising your vBulletin can be an absolute Godsend.

1. Store CSS StyleSheets as Files

By default, vBulletin will store the CSS of your pages as HTML within the head of the document. This, when taken over thousands of pages, can be quite a heavy burden.

Storing CSS Stylesheets as files will allow users/spiders to cache the CSS as a file, and make each page smaller, HTML wise, giving your server a bit of a breather.

To begin, ensure your forums/clientscript/vbulletin_css directory is chmod 777 so the stylesheet files can be created.
Next, in the AdminCP, select the vBulletin Options menu then vBulletin Options.
Select Style and Language Options.
Set "Store CSS Stylesheets as Files?" to Yes.
Click Submit.


2. Gzip those pesky pages!

Many hosts these days come with gzip as standard, meaning if you enable it within vBulletin you can actually slow pages down.

If your host has gzip installed, follow these instructions:

Go to the AdminCP, expand the vBulletin Options menu and select vBulletin Options.
Select Cookies and HTTP Header Options.
Set "GZIP HTML Output" to No, set "GZIP Compression Level" to 0 and click Submit.

If your host does not have gzip installed, choose Yes and 1 for the above.
3. Restrict Search Engine Crawling

Those spiders..they index your content, but there are always places that you don't want or need them to go.
To restrict the pesky critters to only eating up your Content, do the following.

In your root (public_html) directory, upload the following robots.txt::

PHP Code:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /forums/admincp/
Disallow: /forums/cgi-bin/
Disallow: /forums/clientscript/
Disallow: /forums/includes/
Disallow: /forums/install/
Disallow: /forums/modcp/
Disallow: /forums/sitemap/
Disallow: /forums/tags/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /forums/printthread.php
Disallow: /forums/subscription.php
Disallow: /forums/payments.php
Disallow: /forums/profile.php
Disallow: /forums/faq.php
Disallow: /forums/calendar.php
Disallow: /forums/private.php
Disallow: /forums/sendmessage.php
Disallow: /forums/sendmessage.php?do=
Disallow: /forums/showgroups.php
Disallow: /forums/reputation.php
Disallow: /forums/report.php
Disallow: /forums/threadrate.php
Disallow: /forums/postings.php
Disallow: /forums/newthread.php
Disallow: /forums/search.php
Disallow: /forums/newreply.php
Disallow: /forums/register.php
Disallow: /forums/login.php
Disallow: /forums/faq.php
Disallow: /forums/image.php
Disallow: /forums/cron.php
Disallow: /forums/joinrequests.php
Disallow: /forums/usercp.php 


Remove any lines that you WANT the spiders to see.. if you want them to crawl the Calendar, take out Disallow: /forums/calendar.php.

4. Move Attachments to the File System

Stock vBulletin Attachments are stored in the Database. Large attachments or frequent viewing of them can cause a strain.

To move them to the File System, create an attachments directory above your public_html (at the same level as it.. /root/username/public_html | root/username/attachments) and CHMod it 777.

By placing it at this level, we prevent anyone from being able to access the attachments directly (ie: not through vBulletin).

Next, go to the AdminCP and expand the Attachments menu.
Click on Attachment Storage Type.
Move your attachments out of the database and into the file system.

Attachment Path: /home/*username*/attachments


5. Move Avatars and Profile Pics to the File System

As with the Attachments above, but the Avatars are on every post, so cause a burden to the server whenever a post is viewed.

To move them to the filesystem, chmod your forums/customavatars and forums/customprofilepics directories to 777.
Go to the AdminCP and expand the Avatars menu.
Click User Picture Storage Type.
Choose to Move Avatars and Profile Pics to the File System.

Avatar Path: /home/*username*/public_html/forums/customavatars

Avatar URL: /forums/customavatars

Profile Pic Path: /home/*username*/public_html/forums/customprofilepics

Profile Pic URL: /forums/customprofilepics


6. Increase Cached Posts Lifespan

Posts can be "cached", meaning the server doesn't have to pull them from the database every time they are viewed.
To enable Post Caching, do the following:

Go to the AdminCP, expand the vBulletin Options menu and select vBulletin Options.
Select Server Settings and Optimization Options in the drop down menu.
Set "Cached Posts Lifespan" to 90.
Click Submit.
If you have very little spare space, drop it to 30.


7. Disable Search and Who's Online for Guests

Why should guests (which are often mainly Spiders) see your Who's Online and Search? Do the following to stop them and reduce the load.

Go to your AdminCP.
Expand the Usergroups menu.
Select Usergroup Manager.
Select Unregistered / Not Logged In.
Set both "Can Search Forums" and "Can View Who's Online" to No.
Click Submit.

8. Turn on fulltext searching

Go to your AdminCP and expand the vBulletin Options menu
Select Search Type.
Set "Empty postindex and word tables?" to Yes.
Click Submit.


9. vBulletin.org Optimisation Mods

The following link willl provide the various Modifications that have been written by the Community at vB.org:

vB3.5 Add-ons - vBulletin.org Forum

[loco.M]

some great tips, thx

I have a few questions..
#2 the gzip,, we set it to no ? i would think u mean yes ?

and number 8, I couldn't find this options in 3.6 vb

is it okay that i reposted this on my site ? i get some vb questions from time to time. I linked back to your site, if u want it removed, just let me know

thanks again

[Kall]

You only set it to yes if your host doesn't already gzip by default, otherwise you are double-zipping it, which isnt worth it for the load it causes.

For number 8, it may have moved in 3.6 but is under vBulletin Options in the vBulletin Options menu.

[Kall]

and. perfectly fine for you to repost with a linkback.

(Actually.. you could digg it!)

[loco.M]

We couldn't find any results containing http//digg.com/software/vBulletin_Optimisation_Tips. Consider...............




are you sure you have the correct url ?
here it is,, and i dug it,, number 3 and commented

http://www.digg.com/software/vBullet...imisation_Tips
btw, thx for letting me repost this, I'll post a link back to this thread from here
http://locoforum.com/44/1022-vbullet...misation-tips/

[Code Monkey]

You also set gzip to no if you have apache with mod_deflate installed.

And if you are using my vB AJAX cron then you need to add ajax_cron.php to the robots.txt. Or any other custom script you don't want spiders running.

[Code Monkey]

@Kall

I did a trackback to this thread and it is failing for some reason. Oleg did one from vbseo.com and it worked. Any ideas?

[Kall]

Other than "Kall is slack at approving his Trackbacks".. none at all!

(Have a lookie.. is it listed now?)

[da420]

Thanks for this wonderful information. Much of it I had already done, or was considering to do.

One question, I am using GZIP enabled in vBulletin, but I do have the option to install it on the server. Would it benefit to have it installed on the server, and then disable it in the AdminCP? Or does it not matter?

[Kall]

It's best to not have both activated.. just leads to extra lod on your server.

If you enable it globally, it will work on all pages, including those that aren't generated by vBulletin...so you would want to turn it off in the AdminCP.

[da420]

Originally Posted by Kall

It's best to not have both activated.. just leads to extra lod on your server.

If you enable it globally, it will work on all pages, including those that aren't generated by vBulletin...so you would want to turn it off in the AdminCP.

Really? It's best to have GZIP disabled completely? On both the server, and in the AdminCP? I'm just curious as to why this would be?

Thanks.

[Kall]

No no.. have one or the other.

Server-side, it will work for all your pages, including those that are not generated by vB.

[da420]

Ok, thank you Kall. That is exactly what I was looking for.

Another quick question, I seem to have zlib installed on my server. Is there any benefits or hinderences that are occured with having both zlib and gzip enabled? I just noticed it when I was looking in my php info.

Thanks, and look forward to hearing your input.

[Kall]

Umm.. I don't actually know about zlib sorry.