84 replies to this topic

[Sonya*]

_http://mypage.com/page/library/_/category/article-title

This is bad for SEO and users

1. URL to one article is not SEO friendly, see the official video of Google discussing about deep links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_A1iRY6XTM&feature=player_embedded
(a) They say literally "it is not a MAJOR factor". So, it IS a factor and IP.Content has negative impact on SEO.
(b) They say it should be logical for the user, but it is not.

2. My users are not able to easily remember the URL. Judge yourself, what is easier and more logical?

_http://mypage.com/page/library/_/category/article-title

or

_http://mypage.com/library/category/article-title

We move now to IP.Content from a system where URLs are fully customizable. We have very good search engine ranking for some very popular keywords. However, it is not possible for us to use our previous logical structure

_http://mypage.com/library/category/article-title

We should go to unlogical, unfriendly and ugly alternative and probably loose some positions in search ranking.

Dear IPS! What is sooooooooo difficult in giving us flexible URL structure in IP.Content? Please do not say, it is impossible, major system with CMS component do this with ease. I am very disappointed to see that nothing has been done in IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: SEO Improvements http://community.inv...o-improvements/ to improve URL structure.

[Freeborne]

http://www (dot) ausarma (dot) org

FURL's are fine for me. Search the site and you'll see how you can change things with a few file edits. My unique seperator for articles is "news".

[Marcher Technologies]

http://www (dot) ausarma (dot) org

FURL's are fine for me. Search the site and you'll see how you can change things with a few file edits. My unique seperator for articles is "news".

... why do you think they use a /_/?
...as long as you dont make a folder, page, or category of that furl you are fine...
apparently a /news/ page/folder/category isnt needed then?
you can change it out yes...
but that item is a stop-phrase... you use it there, you cannot use it elsewhere sans boink.

[Sonya*]

Freeborne, eager to look into it. At the moment AUSARMA is currently unavailable.

[Axel Wers]

Generally I don't have any problems with indexing of IP.Content links. Almost all records are indexed.

[Sonya*]

... why do you think they use a /_/?

They say, it is technically the only way to get separator into URL. However, technically, they do not need any separator at all.

Technically, it is enough to have a page for app IP.Content and static FURL for each entry. Page would advise a system to go to IP.Content and IP.Content would look for the static URL of the article.

Generally I don't have any problems with indexing of IP.Content links. Almost all records are indexed.

Video above is not about indexing, it is about ranking.

[Marcher Technologies]

They say, it is technically the only way to get separator into URL. However, technically, they do not need any separator at all.

Technically, it is enough to have a page for app IP.Content and static FURL for each entry. Page would advise a system to go to IP.Content and IP.Content would look for the static URL of the article.


Video above is not about indexing, it is about ranking.

what is category? what is page? what is a folder? what do we load?
we already have an issue with categories of the same furl tbh....
now add a page and folder of same furl.... and no marker to sort it out .
that /_/ or whatever its customized to is the only thing keeping a database running on a page sans the conflict of matching directory/page/category/article
or for a better idea....
/news/news/news/article...
... at the article level all could seem kosher...
but /news/news/news..
is that a file?
could be... could be a category as well.... or a directory for that matter.

[Sonya*]

now add a page and folder of same furl.... and no marker to sort it out .

Now add a topic with the same ID and title to your board and no marker to sort it out.... IPB is able to produce unique URLs for board, blog, gallery, downloads, everywhere except IP.Content? Look, it is just about static FURL to be unique within a category or within entire IP.Content and not allow to save the record if static FURL is not unique. It is not so difficult...

[Marcher Technologies]

Now add a topic with the same ID and title to your board and no marker to sort it out.... IPB is able to produce unique URLs for board, blog, gallery, downloads, everywhere except IP.Content? Look, it is just about static FURL to be unique within a category or within entire IP.Content and not allow to save the record if static FURL is not unique. It is not so difficult...

Consider...
each one of those apps has the Furl complexity of 1 ipc database... no pages or folders....
this is quite a bit more complex than you are willing to see... and it has little to nothing to do with the record static slug

[Marcher Technologies]

let me put it in more laymans terms..
can you load an app even with furls running sans the app marker for it?
no, even with furls, except for the default app, you need that /blogs/ and such..
there is little difference here, except that 1 app powers it all, and each database is a pseudo-app to itself....
though i quite like the idea of being able to customize that marker per database as we can per app, to be frank.

[Sonya*]

but /news/news/news..
is that a file?
could be... could be a category as well.... or a directory for that matter.

It is not JUST IP.Content. We cannot create folder /blog, /chat, /gallery etc. if we use these components. It is a normal restriction that apply to every SEO URL in any software.

[Sonya*]

let me put it in more laymans terms..
can you load an app even with furls running sans the app marker for it?
no, even with furls, except for the default app, you need that /blogs/ and such..
there is little difference here, except that 1 app powers it all, and each database is a pseudo-app to itself....
though i quite like the idea of being able to customize that marker per database as we can per app, to be frank.

I do not ask to remove app marker. It is obvious that we need it to handle requests. Though is still should be flexible. Saying page should be customizable as there are also other languages in the world except English And page is just meaningless in other languages or even confusing.

I am also aware of pseudo-app structure and understand WHY it is so. Still when there is a negative impact on SEO und usability it is worth just to think about changing the concept, isn't it? I can explain pseudo-app structure to other programmers, but I cannot explain it to search engines and my users. Both would like to see logical URLs for them and not logical URLs for the programmers.

[Marcher Technologies]

I do not ask to remove app marker. It is obvious that we need it to handle requests. Though is still should be flexible. Saying page should be customizable as there are also other languages in the world except English And page is just meaningless in other languages or even confusing. I am aware of pseudo-app structure and understand WHY it is so. Still when there is a negative impact on SEO und usability it is worth just to think about changing the concept, isn't it? I can explain pseudo-app structure to other programmers, but I cannot explain it to search engines and my users. Both would like to logical for them URLs and not logical for the programmers.

content has a furlTemplate, firstly.... /page/ can be changed.
secondly. /page/ is the single easiest item to REMOVE from the urls entirely...
im rather confused now.

[Sonya*]

content has a furlTemplate, firstly.... /page/ can be changed.

I know it.

secondly. /page/ is the single easiest item to REMOVE from the urls entirely...

This is new to me. Can I really remove it from my URLs? It would be perfect and first step to pretty URL I am going to look for this solution.

[Marcher Technologies]

I know it.


This is new to me. Can I really remove it from my URLs? It would be perfect and first step to pretty URL I am going to look for this solution.

http://community.inv...-home-page-r174
if the active app route is what you are going for...
at the end...

Note that if you use this method, you do not need to use the index.php file found under the Tools folder, and should be sure that the "URL to index.php file" setting in Advanced Settings is blank.

True... dont use the index.php with content!!!!
False, input the url to the ipb index.php instead.

[Sonya*]

Marcher, thank you! I have to look into it deeper. The link is about setting home page and I would like to change URLs for all my articles not only for home page. That's why I should invest time to understand how it works.

Removing the page is a lot help. Still getting rid of /_/ (not just replacing) would make me the happiest webmaster of the world

[Freeborne]

The current FURL system IPS use is flawed. Easy to agree on that? Just look at the majority of customers and the messy URL's on their website.

IPS need to spend more time fixing fURL's, and tie in all their apps (and 3rd party apps) into an easy to use and understand FURL system.

When you setup IP.Board and IP.Content there should be a wizard letting you choose FURL names for things, such as your apps, and catergories. It should also show you a live example of what your links will look like. Like Sonya said things like "pages" and "blogs" should be easily renamed for people using a language other than English.

These are all easy to setup FURL with default settings:
www.mydomain.org/blogs
www.mydomain.com/gallery
www.mydomain.com/members
www.mydomain.com/contact.php (Page made in IP.Content)

FURL database marker or whatever they're called (the /_/ between articles) should be accessible in the ACP (not via editing files). It should be obvious to change 'blogs' to 'journal' via some page in the ACP.

So I changed /_/ to "news" (you could use "articles" instead maybe?). My article database system now has all it's links start in the "news" folder (www.mydomain.com/news, www.mydomain.com/news/apple-releases). I haven't come across any problems with this (so far) and have a half dozen categories and several dozen articles. I just have to remember to make those changes again after an upgrade.

No-one can create a file/folder called "news" in the root folder without FTP access or ACP account, so I think it's safe that I won't duplicate that URL accidentally. Is it any different than if I went and made a folder called "blogs" or "gallery" (haven't not tried this, I have no idea what would happen).

[Marcher Technologies]

Marcher, thank you! I have to look into it deeper. The link is about setting home page and I would like to change URLs for all my articles not for home page. That's why I should dig deeper.

Removing page would help a lot. Getting rid of /_/ (not just replacing) would make me the happiest webmaster of the world

... article should be named setting up content sans /page/ tbh... the name is flat misleading..if i
set content up outside my forums, or as active app as i describe, ALL urls lose /page/...
http://www.marchertech.com/
course i much prefer running it at root outside ipb ^^

[Marcher Technologies]

The current FURL system IPS use is flawed. Easy to agree on that? Just look at the majority of customers and the messy URL's on their website.

IPS need to spend more time fixing fURL's, and tie in all their apps (and 3rd party apps) into an easy to use and understand FURL system.

When you setup IP.Board and IP.Content there should be a wizard letting you choose FURL names for things, such as your apps, and catergories. It should also show you a live example of what your links will look like. Like Sonya said things like "pages" and "blogs" should be easily renamed for people using a language other than English.

These are all easy to setup FURL with default settings:
www.mydomain.org/blogs
www.mydomain.com/gallery
www.mydomain.com/members
www.mydomain.com/contact.php (Page made in IP.Content)

FURL database marker or whatever they're called (the /_/ between articles) should be accessible in the ACP (not via editing files). It should be obvious to change 'blogs' to 'journal' via some page in the ACP.

So I changed /_/ to "news" (you could use "articles" instead maybe?). My article database system now has all it's links start in the "news" folder (www.mydomain.com/news, www.mydomain.com/news/apple-releases). I haven't come across any problems with this (so far) and have a half dozen categories and several dozen articles. I just have to remember to make those changes again after an upgrade.

No-one can create a file/folder called "news" in the root folder without FTP access or ACP account, so I think it's safe that I won't duplicate that URL accidentally. Is it any different than if I went and made a folder called "blogs" or "gallery" (haven't not tried this, I have no idea what would happen).

this.... just... this.
dont make me beg... no more hard file edits for furlTemplate edits? please?
of course we know how to do them(by we i mean the advanced users lol)
a standardized system to let it just BE left alone through upgrade....

[Freeborne]

So you want to create an article on your front-page with a URL of:
"www.mydomain.com/new-iphone5-release-date-announced-r46"
"www.mydomain.com/happy-easter-everyone-67"

and so on?


I don't think the articles database really suits such a setup. I still belive it's achievable, through rewrites using regular expessions (maybe the fURLTemplates.php can do this, or maybe it requires htaccess mod_rewrites I've never seen an answer for it). Instead of fighting the system maybe look at a different way of structuring your content.

The articles database is for creating Articles. Like a newspaper or magazine these all have share 'topics/categories' and should be grouped logically.

If you want to create completely seperate content then use normal "Pages" (built with raw HTML/PHP files, or dynamically using IP.Content Pages).


Eg:
www.mydomain.com/about_us.htm (built with IP.Content Pages)
www.mydomain.com/articles/local-news/flash-flooding-in-darwin-r5789 (an Article made in IP.Content)
www.mydomain.com/articles/financial/htc-declares-bankruptcy-r5939 (an Article made in IP.Content)

If you wish to change /_/ to "news", "articles" or something else it is detailed here:
http://community.inv...00-url-rewrite/