We're getting whipped on SEO-friendly dynamic content URL's

[harmala]

I was somewhat dismayed by the lack of any real idea of how modules and pretty URLs even work, and definitely dismayed at how hard it was to figure out a solution. This is definitely something most developers in the "real world" need, want and expect. I'm also disappointed that a module as mature as News has such nonsensical URLs, even if they are "clean".

Just because you don't understand how it works, doesn't make it 'nonsensical'.

Sorry, I meant "nonsensical" in the sense that, if I was a user trying to memorize the URL, it would be nonsensical. Believe me, I spent the last three days learning the code to fix my issue, I have an excellent idea of how it all works now.

As I pointed out in that other thread, my clients have an existing site with clean URLs pointing to content that is linked to all over the web (i.e. www.site.com/locations/denver). I did not have the option of handing them a "similar" URL with a few numbers tacked on (www.site.com/locations/4/47/denver. That would have broken links all over the place and it just isn't really a complete solution to the issues that clean URLs are trying to address.

Again, I love this code and I'm not trying to be a whiner. I want to help, and besides releasing my module soon, I'm willing to help out the community. I just want to get a feel for the community and its goals before I do...as you well know, time is not infinite and I want to spend it where it is best used.

[calguy1000]

I'm just wondering why you didn't do a few simple mod_rewrite rules to redirect the old URLS to new ones.

[harmala]

I'm just wondering why you didn't do a few simple mod_rewrite rules to redirect the old URLS to new ones.

Well...I guess that is an option, but honestly, I've been so impressed with CMSMS that I really wanted to see it all work without having to resort to that. That feels defeatist. I mean, I could have hacked this whole thing together without building a module at all, but I wanted to do it the "right" way, so to speak.

Ultimately, I still had to hack the index.php, so I guess it's the same end result...I can't distribute the module until I find a better option, otherwise users would have to either add mod_rewrite rules or hack the index page to get it all to work properly. But I would love for this to work in a way where the module can be installed normally and utilize the "super-clean" URLs.

[calguy1000]

if  you put the returnid into the URL like News and all the other modules do, then you could simply do some 302 redirect thingies in .htaccess to redirect from the old pages to the new pages...... which doesn't seem the wrong approach to me.

[Connie]

calguy,

it does seem a wrong approach to me, as it is difficult to ask people to edit .htaccess
not everybody is so fit as you are
and not everybody knows about these things

if you try to ease the way to install modules, than editing system files is an obstacle

[calguy1000]

I'm not saying  that users should be expected to edit system files.

but harmala resorted to fooling with the index.php stuff even after writing a new module module, because he wanted  to make the URLS to his module fit an old system, when the better approach in that case would have been to use URLS the way news has them, and to use a few 302 redirects to solve the problem.

[tyman00]

Especially since any future upgrades may break his changes to index.php and he may have to go and re-implement them, assuming his changes will be compatible with the possible future changes to index.php.

Yes, things could be done a little differently. But it all takes time. Something our current devs are short of and not many people are stepping up to help because they don't have the knowledge (like me) or the time (like our current devs).

[yankee80]

Jeremy,

how did you manage to make SitemapMadeSimple include News articles in the generated sitemap? I've been wanting to do this for a loooong time

Cheers
Eric

[JeremyBASS]

Funny you are like the only person that showed interest... that was simple... just do a capture and assign.. then you can add it.... look to the tips area for more detail... I've written alot on this and also on how to put it in the menu system too... if anything is in reference to blog you can do the same steps just for news...

hope that helps...
Cheers
jeremyBass

[yankee80]

thanks for your prompt reply but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.

there are no steps how to achieve this and I don't see any links in your post either

cheers
eric

[JeremyBASS]

it's...

{capture assign='junk'}{news number='1000'}{/capture}
{foreach from=$items item=entry}
{assign var=utmpNEWS value=$entry->moreurl|replace:'//':'/1/'|replace:'http:/1':'http:/'}

  {$utmpNEWS}

{if $entry->formatpostdate}
  {$entry->formatpostdate|date_format:"%Y-%m-%d"}
{/if}
{$page->priority}
  {$page->frequency}

{/foreach}

Now 1 is the pageid so you ned to pick a page for it to land on... and replace 1... but thats it...

cheers


jeremyBass

[brippon]

bots follow links, they don't guess at them.   Therefor even if   www.mysite.com/parent/parent/parent/child.html and www.mysite.com/child.html bring up the same page that is NOT a weakness, and has no effect (by itself) on your SEO ranking.

It's only if your site used inconsistent, or improper internal linking, or shared bad links that this would result in the crawlers finding duplicate content.

Or, if you submitted your site to the search engines numerous times, with different URL configurations, or other silly things like that.

I've just had cause to consider this potential duplicate content problem for a site, where it's convenient for the client to publish the short URL www.mysite.com/child rather than the full hierarchic for readability / marketing reasons. And the fact that CMSMS supports this is a strength not a weakness.

However if Google were to pick up this URL *and* fail to recognize it as the same as the full one, the page rank could be diluted. I don't know if the sitemap helps alleviate this.

I did wonder whether the alias engine (is it there?), rather than immediately serving up the required page, should do a
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
before redirecting to the full URL?

Then these abbreviated URLs would continue to work but Google would know the correct one and there would be no risk of duplicate content penalties or dilution.

Or is this naive?
Brian

[JeremyBASS]

>>>potential duplicate content problem for a site

Hi, if you read thu the google doc, I'd see that a site map would fix this... nothing else need to be done...

Cheers
jeremyBass

[brippon]

>>>potential duplicate content problem for a site

Hi, if you read thu the google doc, I'd see that a site map would fix this... nothing else need to be done...

Hi jeremyBASS, I've read a lot of Google doc in my time...

However I am yet to find anything definitive to say that a site map would fix it. For example, their page on duplicate content suggests 10 steps to address the dup con issue, none of which are Sitemaps - in fact, they're not even mentioned on the page. If it were that simple, wouldn't they suggest it?

The Sitemap page says that they "provide additional information" and "complement" normal crawling. And a common question is "why if I have 1000 pages in my Sitemap does Google list 2000...?" which backs this up. Absence of a page in the Sitemap does not remove it from Google.

Therefore the only way that a Sitemap would fix the problem would be if Google were to use it to differentiate between two apparently identical versions of a page and decide which is the authoritative version. This is very possible, of course - but where in the documentation does it say it does this? Or, given that they don't document their algorithms, what evidence is there?

Cheers
Brian

[JeremyBASS]

I'd like to start by saying this... I never said that a sitemap would stop the content from being indexed... I was telling you that a sitemap will tell Google which on to index.

Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.

Here are links you should read...

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/?hl=en

Use Webmaster Tools to tell us how you prefer your site to be indexed:

http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=66359


http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=35769
http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=70897


Now it's easy to read all that and come out and say "CMSMS is not SEO friendly"  but if you test and do it right, you'll have no issues...

In short this is what I'm saying...

I have no problems with my sites be indexed correctly and having organic searches leading to the right places... If you're having issues, it's only because you have made a mistake... sorry but if one can do it right , with many sites, then others can too..

In the end read, test, and just try it... do it to your sandbox. and remember... a real person from Google will visit you site sometime.

Hope this helps
cheers
jeremyBass