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HB
phpBB SEO Team
Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Posts: 809
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 Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:02 am Post subject: tinyurl and permalinks |
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A number of my site's membership are hardcore newsgroup fans and thus have adopted the habit of using "URL shortening" sites like tinyurl.com. I would like to offer a site-specific link alternative because (a) it increases the number of backlinks when they refer to my site from other newsgroups and sites, and (b) it's convenient.
As a test, I added three new rewrite rules to my test site's .htaccess file: | Code: |
# PAGINATED TOPIC
RewriteRule ^forums/.*-t([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^t([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [QSA,L,R=301]
# TOPIC
RewriteRule ^forums/.*-t([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^t([0-9]+)$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1 [QSA,L,R=301]
# POST
RewriteRule ^forums/post([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?p=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^p([0-9]+)$ /forums/viewtopic.php?p=$1 [QSA,L,R=301] |
So www.example.com/forums/blah-blah-blah-t1234.html is the same as www.example.com/t1234. The newsgroup loving crowd would adore the latter choice, but I wonder about the disadvantages. For example, it causes an added redirection due to the change in directory (R=301). On the other hand, the advanced rewrite mod already introduced www.example.com/forums/post1234.html, so some redirection occurs anyway.
Many of my site's members surf similar sites and cross-refer when appropriate. I thought to provide both types of links in the topic header, one with the topic subject like normal, and a smaller "mini link" (or "permalink"?) next to it for the small URL minded. Similarly, the www.example.com/forums/post1234.html type URLs could be mapped to the even shorter www.example.com/p1234 version with a rel=nofollow element to avoid unnecessary search engine churning.
What do you think, is there any drawbacks SEO-wise and usability-wise I've overlooked to offering super short permalinks in addition to the regular title-injected URLs? |
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Dan Kehn |
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dcz
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Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:47 am Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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I understand the short url tease, but, I do not think these can be of any good SEO wise.
First, many services I tested returned HTTP 302 headers while handling the redirection to third party web sites, which is basically Pagerank Hacking and could end up being harmful if followed by bots.
So it's better to think about redirecting and build them yourself if you really want to use them. At least you'll end up with HTTP 301.
And all you'd have to do would be to add nofollow tags on the short links, and you could even only show them to logged user. Because it not the standard you've chosen, so redirecting takes a bit more resources and you don't want these to be used more than the other ones.
A funny thing is the phpbb_seo_class is allowing you to control so much things over URLs, that you could even imagine to use the shorter standard for logged users and the advanced one for guests. Guests would be redirected to the advanced urls, and user would fully bypass the zero dupe and keep both standard working the same.
Simple to do, but still, a bit more work for the server, not much, but still.
Now about the url standard suggested by your rewriterules, it can cause some problem.
It's not very likely to happen, but if you have a folder or a page at the root level starting with t0 for example, it can mess up a bit.
About the post, I'm going to release the no dupe 
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HB
phpBB SEO Team
Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Posts: 809
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:02 am Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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| dcz wrote: | | And all you'd have to do would be to add nofollow tags on the short links, and you could even only show them to logged user. Because it not the standard you've chosen, so redirecting takes a bit more resources and you don't want these to be used more than the other ones. |
Good points. Admittedly it was the post1234.html#1234 in the forum page and the post link that got me thinking about it. I'd rather not have any of the post1234.html, but it they're necessary, I figured they may as well serve a purpose. As you said, it could backfire and result in the majority using the permalink / mini links.
The newgroup lovers on my site will undoubtedly hate the longer URLs. Most tolerate the current viewtopic.php?t= format because it works fine in a newgroup if it appears on a separate line. With the site name, forum folder, plus title injection, it could get pretty long, which would drive more of them to switch to (ugh) tinyurl.com. That not only deprives the site of backlinks, but means niceties like google alerts no longer work.
The mixed mode or simple mode rewrites produce the most compact URLs, which brings me back to my musings about the value of title injection. In principle it sounds like a good idea, but it's not an easy implementation (coding or in terms of moderating for silly titles). |
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Dan Kehn |
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dcz
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:00 am Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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The funny thing is you seem to run the small link lovers community 
Because I never had any complain, never about url, what so ever from user.
My assumption was most user do not care at all.
I mean, I've barely seen user complain about phpBB.com url when they post advanced pagination links with sid so ...
This to tell, I would not mind this much about tiny url, it's rather a matter of choosing between the mixed and advanced mod rewrite.
The mixed will run small urls for topics, you can even imagine to shorten more than topicxx.html, could be txx.html. But depending on if you forum is purely chat or a bit more organized, title in topic url can bring better SERPs thus more visitors.
As you like to play with filter, we could imagine to add a filter to get rid of all words under like three letters to run shorter url with keywords.
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HB
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:23 pm Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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| dcz wrote: | Because I never had any complain, never about url, what so ever from user.
My assumption was most user do not care at all. |
Newsgroups are being displaced by website based forums, so that's one reason you hear few complaints. SEO and phpBB related discussion is thin on newsgroups for the obvious reason that such people are the least likely to use them. 
However, my forum co-exists with a large and very active newsgroup community, so crossover is constant. I rarely post in a newsgroup, but I am aware of who in my forums does (their off hand comments and posting style gives away their provenance). I wish to encourage the participation of these crossover newgroup members on my site, hence why I consider their interests and posting style. There's also those lost backlinks to tinyurl... then again, newsgroups backlinks may not even be counted towards page rank (?). |
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dcz
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:42 am Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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It depends, some newsgroups are public, thus spidered and the links in them followed by bots.
If the newsgroups phenomenon is this important on your web site, and newsgroups users really found of tiny urls, then, it could be cool to implement the short links as you said, redirecting them all to the long ones.
You could just announce on you board the possible use of really tiny urls (tinier than the web services ones ) it will always be better than the web service ones.
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HB
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:15 pm Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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| dcz wrote: | | It depends, some newsgroups are public, thus spidered and the links in them followed by bots. |
Perhaps, but I bet more and more are adding rel=nofollow to discourage spammers. I can't say that I blame them.
| dcz wrote: | | If the newsgroups phenomenon is this important on your web site, and newsgroups users really fond of tiny urls, then, it could be cool to implement the short links as you said, redirecting them all to the long ones. |
I will poll a couple of the newgroups groupies and get their opinion on the importance of it. With all the trouble of the Advanced rewrite mod, would be a shame to encourage the non-newsgroups lovers toward a tiny url usage pattern.
To clarify your earlier comment about short URLs and 301's: You recommend redirecting within the same folder, i.e., include the forums like www.example.com/forums/t1234 in the mini URL, not going mini-mini and allowing www.example.com/t1234, correct? |
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dcz
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 10:42 pm Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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well, the only thing I was saying was this king of short URL could get tricked if you had pages at the root level with an url starting with t and followed by numbers.
But it's very unlikely, it's just something you should know if you go for this.
You as well take the risk to break all relative paths, as the browser will really "think" he's browsing the root folder.
So maybe keeping forum/ is easier to deal with, but if you really want them tiny ...
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HB
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:26 pm Post subject: Re: tinyurl and permalinks |
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| dcz wrote: | | You as well take the risk to break all relative paths, as the browser will really "think" he's browsing the root folder. |
That's exactly what happened and why I had to add the R=301 in my test:
| Code: | RewriteRule ^forums/.*-t([0-9]+)\.html$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1 [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^t([0-9]+)$ /forums/viewtopic.php?t=$1 [QSA,L,R=301] |
Otherwise the browser was filled with broken links for the folder-relative images. I'll see if there's a good but not too good place for these king of short URLs. I don't want to clutter the UI just to make newsgroup members happy. At a minimum, I'd add rel=nofollow and maybe restrict displaying them to logged in members. |
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