How to remove forum and topic keyword from bbpress url

I had been trying lot of forum softwares ( around 5 till now ) from last Friday and was testing BBPRESS yesterday. The new version9.x has lot of improvement over its 8.x version but one thing I found common in both of them

• “Forum” keyword was appended when you accesss any forum e.g http://sitename.com/<forum-directory>/forum/<forum slug>
• “topic” keyword was also appended for every post made e.g http://sitename.com<forum-directory>/topic/<actualy topic slug>

Now I understand why both the keywords are reqired but again from SEO point it has no meaning unless somebody runs a forum on “forums” topic. The next thing I did was look around for a hack and luckily at this post there was a solution , but not actual plugin was supported. I copied the code given there and tested around and was successful.

Before I start, I have just tested around with the code given by the memebers over there. So test it before you use it. And moreover I am not supporting it as I did not make it and cant do it either.

I made a plugin from the code given and took re-write code for .htaccess files. Here is how they look

PLUGIN:( Taken from the forum link )

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Remove Topic Forum
Plugin URI: http://bbpress.org/
Description: Allows to remove forum and topic word in url
Author: Ashish Mohta
Version: 1.0
Author URI: https://www.technospot.net/blogs/blogs/
*/

function my_get_forum_link_filter( $link , $forum_id = 0 ) {
//retrieve the forum object
$forum = get_forum( get_forum_id( $forum_id ));

//check for rewrite
$rewrite = bb_get_option( ‘mod_rewrite’ );
if ( $rewrite ) {
//what kind of rewrite there is? slug use “forum_slug” column, else the column is “forum_id”
$column = ($rewrite === ’slugs’)?(’forum_slug’):(’forum_id’);

// change /forum/pets-discussions in /pets-discussions
// this work only if the rewrite module is modded!
// and this work only if the slugged name will NEVER
// be a reserved word like “rss” or “bb-images”
// and this is achieved by a filter on bb_slug_sanitize
$link = str_replace(’forum/’ . $forum->$column , $forum->$column, $link);
}
return $link.”/”; // Very important line! // Added extra slash :Ashish
}

add_filter( ‘get_forum_link’, ‘my_get_forum_link_filter’ );

function my_get_topic_link_filter( $link, $topic_id = 0) {
//retrieve the topic object
$topic = get_topic( get_topic_id( $topic_id ));

//retrieve the forum object that is the topic container
$forum = get_forum( get_forum_id( $topic->forum_id ));

//check for rewrite
$rewrite = bb_get_option( ‘mod_rewrite’ );
if ( $rewrite ) {
//what kind of rewrite there is? slug use “forum_slug” column, else the column is “forum_id”
$column = ($rewrite === ’slugs’)?(’forum_slug’):(’forum_id’);

//create the “forum/pets-discussions” chunk to show the hierarchical relation forum->topic
$forum_nice_uri = “forum/” . $forum->$column . “/”;

//attach the hierarchical chunk to the link
$link = str_replace(bb_get_option(’uri’), bb_get_option(’uri’) . $forum_nice_uri, $link);

// change /forum/pets-discussions/topic/my-sweet-dog in /pets-discussions/my-sweet-dog
// this work only if the rewrite module is modded!
// and this work only if the slugged name will NEVER
// be a reserved word like “rss” or “bb-images”
// and this is achieved by a filter on bb_slug_sanitize
$link = str_replace(’forum/’ . $forum->$column , $forum->$column, $link);
$link = str_replace(’topic/’ . $topic->$column , $topic->$column, $link);
}

return $link.”/” ; // Very important line! // Added Extra Slash :Ashish
}

add_filter( ‘get_topic_link’, ‘my_get_topic_link_filter’ );

function my_bb_slug_sanitize_filter( $text_slug, $text_original = ”, $length = 0 ) {
// add “r-” by regex when the string begins with “bb-” or “my-” or is a reserved word
return preg_replace(’/^(my-.*|bb-.*|rss|tags|view|profiles)$/’, ‘r-$1′, $text_slug);
}

add_filter( ‘bb_slug_sanitize’, ‘my_bb_slug_sanitize_filter’ );

?>

.htcaccess file:

( Taken from one same forum link and modified a little. You will need to remove the MULTIVIEW from your existing .htaccess file )

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /forums

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ tags.php?tag=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/([^/]+)/?$ tags.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^tags/?$ tags.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ profile.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$ profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ profile.php?id=$1&tab=$2&page=$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^profile/([^/]+)/?$ profile.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ view.php?view=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^view/([^/]+)/?$ view.php?view=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/?$ rss.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/forum/([^/]+)/?$ rss.php?forum=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/topic/([^/]+)/?$ rss.php?topic=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/tags/([^/]+)/?$ rss.php?tag=$1 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^rss/profile/([^/]+)/?$ rss.php?profile=$1 [L,QSA]

RewriteRule ^([^.]+)/([^.]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ topic.php?id=$2&page=$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/([^.]+)/?$ topic.php?id=$2 [L,QSA]

RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/page/([0-9]+)/?$ forum.php?id=$1&page=$2 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/?$ forum.php?id=$1 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

Place the plugin file in my-plugin directory and .htaccess file in bbpress root directory. Active the plugin. and it should work fine.

The Problem I find with this.

• The Link to BBpress admin board link does not work from main site. It redirects to home page. You will need to manually type the link to go inside.
• In case you type something which does not exists as http://sitename.com/<bbpress-directory>/sdaksda it returns http://sitename.com/<bbpress-directory>// . An extra slash.

Except these 2 there is no problem I see so far but Its not easy to predict as I dont have lot of posts or users. So if you want to try it out, start reading here