CMS Made Simple Forums

CMS Made Simple is a much better CMS/Framework than the competition, largely due to being centered around SMARTY.

However, our lack of a SEO friendly URL solution for dynamic content (modules - news, CompanyDirectory, etc) is allowing CMSMS to fall behind in certain areas of key functionality for SEO.

See this competitor's site (MODx):
http://www.modxcms.com/search-engine-optimized-seo-cms.html

We need a uniform method for modules to pass data (returnlink, detail template, detail page, etc) so that the URL itself can be purely semantic:  http://yourdomain.com/detailpage/catego ... age-title/

Any Suggestions?

Just out of curiosity...

what wrong with using a site map... that solves all the SEO issues as your telling Google were the page is, right?  I have News articles list in the site map like
... what would be bad about that?  Google has not flagged anything... and I've done this with CompanyDirectory, blogs, and many more like that... and they all get traffic from google(organic) says Google Analytics...

Just wondering..
cheers
jeremyBass

It is speculated that Google and other search engines like and favor URLS that are structured logically instead of having goofy references.

The available Pretty Url's function covers the majority of these issues, if modules are coded to use them. Quick examples would be Products, FeedMaker, News. I am not sure if kendo is reffering to the numbers in these pretty urls (www.domain.com/products/52/12/Product-Name.htm) as not needed or not. The numbers generally refer to template id's, containing page id's and the Product ID (or News ID).

As pointed out numerous times during discussion on IRC we can't just simply rely on the product name (or news title). This is because these modules allow multiple items to have the same name/title, so to find a key (differing) reference point you have to use the product or news id. In order to avoid that you would have to build an alias engine much like is used for the CMSMS content pages. It's not a quick and easy fix to build this into a module, not to mention it would break backwards compatibility. We all know how well that goes over.

>>>>speculated that Google and other search engines like and favor URLS

that may be why I'm getting organic referrals... because it's speculated ... but not true... It's not writen down that for sure... at least no where i'v found.. hehe...

I was jut wondering...

jeremyBass

@tyman :

Using the number of the referring page, detail template, and detailpage in the Url, results in the same content being accessed by different url's - if your site calls the same content under a different detail template depending on some parameter.  Google algorithm punishes for identical content on different pages.

In order to avoid that you would have to build an alias engine much like is used for the CMSMS content pages.

Idea:

How difficult would it be to extend the existing alias system for static pages so that modules have the OPTION to use it?

This way when the next release comes out, the News module could be upgraded with a parameter, like alias_engine="1", which would cause the module to use the extended CMSMS unique alias engine.

By making it optional for the module to use it, it would not break backward compatibility.

>>>>results in the same content being accessed by different url's
>>>>Google algorithm punishes for identical content on different pages

For what it's worth ... with what we have now I already account for this... by using sitemap MS, and proper linking... and most of my sites get ranked in the 4-6 range off the bat, and do pop up in the search engines near the top... the only way this could not work is if a bot was to guess at urls to visit... and that they do not do that... 

IMHO, nothing needs to be done that we can't already do... the only thing I think we need added is to be able to define the returnID for any mod...

My2Cents there...

cheers
jeremyBass

JeremyBASS is correct.

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.

@Kendo - If Google (or any other Search Engine) knows about the same page/content on multiple URL's that is a matter of the designer not following the same linking formatting throughout the site. That is the designers fault, not the application. I will agree with JeremyBass and calguy1000. Bots don't guess URLS. They only know about pages/urls that have been linked to or submitted.

@JeremyBass - Isn't 95% of SEO speculated? Only Google really knows the ever-changing algorithm.  We know that links to your site and good content help you out, beyond that it's a craps shoot. On the same token, I always thought it was accepted that Search Engines favored www.domain.com/parent/child over www.domain.com/index.php?var1=value1&var2=value2

I can't imagine buy.com and overstock.com spent $$ and time to make use of pretty urls just for giggles

>>>>Isn't 95% of SEO speculated

Not for me... but I've read tons on this tested a lot... plus a special friend who know for sure.... 


>>>I always thought it was accepted that Search Engines favored www.domain.com/parent/child over www.domain.com/index.php?var1=value1&var2=value2

that is very true to... it's the ? the engines dislike them, but it’s not that bad thou... as there are many links like that when you do search that rank high... pretty urls are here for the user too... it's much easy to promote www.domain.com/event in an ad then  www.domain.com/index.php?var1=value1&var2=value2 ... and but that's only part of the total of the topic...

If you want a site to pop on top I'd say you need to do 3 things...

1.)use all you meta data... ALL of them, that means company to lan="en", and keyword are heavily important.. This is the major area on how bot knows if content is relative besides KW density.

2.)Don't fall to the link drain... you rank/position is closely tied to the people you link to and some what to who links to you.

3.)Be Trusted... How trust worthy are you?  The longer your on the net the more trustworthy you are... same goes for the people your linking to. But it boils down to can you be trusted...

Now that is the short of it as validation plays a roll too and accessibility as well... but those are even more basic as if a bot can't get thru your site there is a high chance your users will find the holes too...

Every one of the thing I stated can be found on any of the docs provided by Google, MSN, and Yahoo etc... and trust me there are 100s of page with sites like google...

But it comes down to this.. read and test... I have done both for over 10years on this subject on and off.. and not much has changed... the big change cames in the accuracy of these base points... Plus here is the wild card... someone visits your site from Google... they don't have that big work force for nothing, and they say that in the docs too... I've personal spoke to MSN people as well..

Food for thought and take it for what it's worth...

Cheers,
Jeremy

Ok, you guys have destroyed my SEO argument.  I concede the point.

But deep down this still bugs me.

After some soul searching, I realize the real reason I want this is - it's just neater, cleaner prettier, more consistent and less confusing for the user experience. 

Having consistent neat URL's from pages to modules would contribute to the smooth part of "Strong but Smooth".

kendo451 wrote: After some soul searching, I realize the real reason I want this is - it's just neater, cleaner prettier, more consistent and less confusing for the user experience. 

you are so right.

I whished module-developers would care about the generated URLs (and some other things as well)
I see this as a big misadvantage of CMSMS, that there is so much rubbish, discontinued or wrong crap around with the modules...

so easy to break a leg..

I'll go back to my original response then.

tyman00 wrote: Any Suggestions?

Even better, any solutions?

Including the current Pretty URL's is not a 2 second modification and these values (page id, item id, template id) need to be passed along somewhere. The URL is the easiest place for it. One solution would be an alias type engine like I mentioned. But it will likely break reverse-compatibility. Having an option to turn it on or off still doesn't cover the fact that database tables and a majority of the code will have to be re-evaluated for each module. What happens when you turn the option on and none of your 2,000 products have aliases setup? This is also not a quick and easy modification. With the majority of module developers being super busy with other contract work I don't foresee this happening unless it is a sponsored change.

I am not against this, it would be a nice feature for these modules. However, I don't think it is as important as you make it. You have to remember we are web developers so we watch for these kinds of things. Most users don't even look at the url beyond the .com part, especially when you have multiple levels of information. Pretty URLS create a nice aesthetic alternative to ? and &= in the URLS. Nice to look at and it makes Bots happier.

Connie wrote: you are so right.

I whished module-developers would care about the generated URLs (and some other things as well)
I see this as a big misadvantage of CMSMS, that there is so much rubbish, discontinued or wrong crap around with the modules...

so easy to break a leg..

If the developers didn't care about generated URLs they would spend the extra time using mod_rewrite to handle pretty urls. I can't imagine there is so much wrong about these modules like you say. These modules have been by hundreds and thousands of sites and their output has been viewed by hundreds of thousands to millions of people. Yet only a select few think CMSMS is at a huge disadvantage. Are your concerns valid? Yes. They are valid Feature Requests, however they are not problems. So it is very likely that until someone who wants these features helps sponsor these changes there likely isn't going to be much change because of limited time and the devs heavy work load.

Yes there are a lot of old and outdated modules available for download. That however is another topic of discussion, the only problem is limited man power to filter everything.

Just thought I'd jump in on this conversation. Let me start by saying I love CMSMS and I plan to use it on almost all my future projects, and I hope to become part of the developer community. However...

I had a thread in the dev discussion about an issue I was having developing my first module and using pretty URLs. In my case, the client wanted (nay, demanded) clean URLs like /locations/denver/, so that was what I had to figure out. And, it wasn't easy and I had to hack index.php to get things to work properly, and implement an alias system myself.

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".

I'd love to be part of a better solution. It seems that it is possible to implement aliases on a module-by-module basis, as mine uses its own system and is now working fine. Perhaps just a "best practices" tutorial on how to implement aliases if you want them in your module, and an effort to convert the most popular modules using these practices?

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'.