Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

i don't see how it would be since its still the same number of variables just a different syntax for the URLs

77

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

As has already been discussed earlier in these forums, "search engine friendly URLs" are mostly an anachronistic misnomer. While Google previously did not index sites that passed more than one parameter in the URI, they changed that behavior a long time ago. If you want proof, do a Google search for the following keywords. You'll find that -- lo and behold -- this very forum topic is right at the top (even with it's "non-friendly" URL):

feedback wanted URL rewriting

Semantic URI structures are superior not because of search engine relevance, but for reasons having to due with URI permanence and aesthetic readability.

78

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

I certainly didn't go the pretty URL route for search engine reasons, but somewhere in the transition from phpBB and ugly URLs to punBB and pretty URLs, Google started loving our forums. I'll even find our forums in the search results for random personal searches I do, and that never used to happen. I suppose you could also attribute it to the better XHTML markup of the pages, but something tells me page validity can't be weighted that much. Maybe search engines do like the pretty URLs. <shrug>

Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?

79

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

GUI wrote:

I certainly didn't go the pretty URL route for search engine reasons, but somewhere in the transition from phpBB and ugly URLs to punBB and pretty URLs, Google started loving our forums. I'll even find our forums in the search results for random personal searches I do, and that never used to happen. I suppose you could also attribute it to the better XHTML markup of the pages, but something tells me page validity can't be weighted that much. Maybe search engines do like the pretty URLs. <shrug>

I'm thinking that reason could be that phpBB uses those horrible session variables in its URL's unlike PunBB..

80 (edited by AdamM 2005-03-29 13:47)

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

<ignore>Is there a problem with pagination using this thingy?

I have a topic with more than 25 items, but the subsequent page links aren't showing up.</ignore>

Just being stupid, sorry.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

This didn't work at my server, where MultiViews is turned on. /post/1/ is being redirected to /post.php/1/ then, and gives an error. It was solved by putting

Options -MultiViews

in .htaccess.

82

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Ever since I switched my commenting to PunBB from my blog, I wondered how the seach engines would pick up the new content. The search engines were doing a fantastic job on my blog but the urls are sef, like http://hcgtv.com/item/1, etc.

So I've been monitoring the spiders and looking at my stats and I'm glad to report that they don't seem to care if it's /viewtopic.php?id=23 or /viewtopic/23.

Surprisingly, it's Yahoo that has the leg up on Google on my forum. They were the quickest to spider the 3000+ posts on the new forum.

Try this in Yahoo, search for "beth holloway twitty", my forum's topic is #1 right now, at least in the states.

83 (edited by asbjornu 2007-02-08 13:30)

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

There are so many articles covering the fact that Cool URIs don't change, canonical URIs are more search-engine friendly, they are more user friendly and even more cachable (most web caches ignores resources with query parameters) that I won't repeat them here.

I love that PunBB is implementing more "static" URIs in 1.3, but for future versions, it should include a "slug" field in the database for all GET-able resources (forums, posts, etc) so that they can be requested with this slug instead of the ID. You'd need a separate field in the database for it, plus a sanitizing function that washes away all icky characters so the final slug is URI-friendly and readable. Such a function can be found in this WordPress plugin.

Please consider this! It would bring the already great forum to new hights compared to other (rubbish) forum software!

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

The best rewritting we can make is this way :

htpp://ww.website.com/forum/Title-of-topic-ID.htm

This will really improve referencement...

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Audiofeeline wrote:

The best rewritting we can make is this way :
htpp://ww.website.com/forum/Title-of-topic-ID.htm
This will really improve referencement...

No it's not; and no it won't compared to others syntax of URI.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

actually...  I've tried several different types of friendly urls since I started my blog, and recently I modded it so that the title was in the url.  prior to doing this, I had other friendly urls like the mywebsite.com/topic/id and once I put the topic in the url: title_topic.html the stats for each post has gone crazy search engine hit wise.  so I'd have to say that adding the topic title (while not always a good benchmark for content) does do something for you.

87

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

MadHatter wrote:

so I'd have to say that adding the topic title (while not always a good benchmark for content) does do something for you.

That may be one factor, I've also gone from /item/123 to /home/whats-up-dude type of urls.

But I truly believe it's the title of your story that really sets it apart more than the url.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Most of my point was the uselessness of the .htm end-string (which is a double non-sense). Adding good keywords in the url is always a good idea.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Using keywords in url is the best way to make rewritting.
Removing .html is a good idea too...

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

"Removing .html is a good idea too..." : why?

you can do url rewriting without the ID. SPIP (http://www.spip.net) can do that. Example here : http://www.spip-contrib.net/Additional- … on-buttons


why not here ? smile

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

according to a document published by google (don't remember where it is though), keyword ranking is based on a few factors.  one is the length of time your domain is registered for.  sites like mine that renew domain names yearly do no rank as high as a server who's domain is registered for the next 10 years.  another thing is that static content ranks higher than dynamic content... static content being described as a static file.  I'm guessing that a .html file will be considered a "file" and /asdf/asdf will be considered a directory, the .html will gain a higher ranking than the directory.

I use web ceo, and google analytics to monitor my site, and the progression from dynamic, to /asdf/asfd, to 123/title.html has happened very slowly, but the move between /asdf/asdf and /title.html has had an exponential increase in search engine hits, and it happened sort of all of the sudden (and my site doesnt get new content very often)...  when I moved from dynamic content to /asdf/asdf I also started using google sitemaps.  I used that for a number of months, but when I migrated to the html file model, the number of hits for the things (given certain keywords) on my site increased by orders of magnitude.

92 (edited by Audiofeeline 2007-02-09 15:23)

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

nico_somb wrote:

"Removing .html is a good idea too..." : why?

you can do url rewriting without the ID. SPIP (http://www.spip.net) can do that. Example here : http://www.spip-contrib.net/Additional- … on-buttons


why not here ? smile

.html is finaly useless like in your Spip example...
ID is in the case of two same titled topics...


Google understand links like this :

<a href="URLOFWEBSITE">KEYWORD</a>

Givin' keywords in url, we can win a good keyworded backlink in the case of url link that users can post in forums...

For example, Nico give us a link : http://www.spip-contrib.net/Additional- … on-buttons
The Spip Contrib website has just win a backlink with Additional-administration-buttons keywords...
I repeat, that's the best way to do...

http://punbb.org/Feedback-wanted-URL-re … thing-6264 , for example will be something really perfect for SEO! wink
Note that we can remove words less than 2 letters (on, of, in....)

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

We have this already in subversion. It still needs a bit of polish, but it's there.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

94

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

I just wanted to add that the rewriting scheme in SVN is very adept.

It let's you change schemes well after the board has been spidered or you start using links to other posts within the board itself. As long as the .htaccess remains in the root, you can go from one scheme to another and you won't get 404's, even the messy url's will still work.

I was very impressed, I wish other systems were as bullet proof.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

can we change the extension to something other than .html/.htm? i know it's not a high priority for most but it's nice to have that capability.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Right now in svn 1.3 you have : with .html, without .html (as a folder), messy, and with and without the topic (I don't know how it handle thread's topic edit). I think.

Either way, beside it not working on Apache 1.3.x, it seems quite good.

@Bert: great news, I didn't tested that.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Jérémie wrote:

and with and without the topic (I don't know how it handle thread's topic edit).

I think it includes the id either way, and that's the only part used to find the right topic.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

That would make sense, yes.

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Either way, beside it not working on Apache 1.3.x, it seems quite good.

Is it still not working there? I was under the impression that this changeset dealt with the issue

Re: Feedback wanted on URL rewriting thing

Smartys wrote:

Either way, beside it not working on Apache 1.3.x, it seems quite good.

Is it still not working there? I was under the impression that this changeset dealt with the issue

Doesn't work for me on Apache/1.3.33.