forums directory structure

doonee · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 7

hi

i have a question regarding the directory structure in mixed rewrite mode.

let me use this site here as an example:

http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/

im not affiliated with this site, im just using it as an example, as i think that it serves as a better illustration of my question than my test install.

note that they strutured thier forums into sections by using the parent forums as categories.

like so:
http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/zona-anuncios-joomla/
http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/zona-comunidad/
etc.

note also that the forums in each 'category' do NOT have the directory of the category as a parent directory int their URL

for exmaple:

is the first forum in:

http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/zona-anuncios-joomla/

is ..

http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/anuncio-joomla/

rather than ...

http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/zona-anuncios-joomla/anuncio-joomla/

my question:
my test installation here works the same way as http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/

however, i would like to inlcude the directory of the paretn category in the url of the forums under it.

like so:
http://foro.comunidadjoomla.org/zona-anuncios-joomla/anuncio-joomla/

i believe it makes more sense, as the links to the forums under a category appear nicley listed under its url. so why shoudl its name not be inlude in the URLs of the forums ?

is there a way to do that ?

regards and thanks!!
dee

MrGroove · PR0 Joined: 17 Oct 2008 Posts: 59 Location: groovyPost.com

doonee · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 7

Hi mrgroove, thanks for the comprehensive reply.

I don't have much to add, except that there may be cases where the injection of parent forum/category name into the URL may turn it more comprehensive to humans, for example when the forum/category names contain of product model or brand names and subforum names have less informational 'value' ('support', 'news' etc.).

I was asking because I forsee valid requests from clients in this direction
and I would still be curious if i can configure the premod to inject parent forum/category names if required.

Thanks again
D

dcz · Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject: Re: forums directory structure

You're perfectly right MrGroove, and I appreciate that you like our work here too Wink

@doonee, well I admit that under some circumstances it could be a bit better to have one more level in the uri structure, but the cases are not many.
But even in these cases, the difference would probably not be sensible SEOwise.

Some one recently posted an example of exactly what you want here, but a) I cannot find the post any more Mr. Green

and b) he never shared the code so far and I don't know exactly what does he want to do.

You may have more patience than me on this with the search function Wink

Anther thing to consider about this is that implementing such multilevel rewriting would cost more resources, it's as well something to keep in mind IMO.
I really think that SEO should be as light as possible on server load, because it's not the most useful code spent for your users experience (most user do not even notice about it) and you may need resources to add some other mods that will really be useful to your community on a daily basis.

++

doonee · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 7

hi dcz

MrGroove · PR0 Joined: 17 Oct 2008 Posts: 59 Location: groovyPost.com