putting stupid search engine urls back

Martin Schut nginx at wommm.nl
Sun Aug 30 16:39:19 MSD 2009


> Well... first off, any major change to software like that is going to
> change the url patterns and break your links, whether you're using
> friendly looking links or showthread kind of links.

Actually I'll look at SEO-friendly URL's as an advantage here. Whether you  
have to rewrite 1 rule to automagically use the new url pattern or half a  
million it's all about making it easy for your users/customers. You don't  
want to make it difficult for them because /you/ changed software. If they  
go directly to you buy-now page, you want to get there directly and not  
present a search page saying, 'we changed software, please search for the  
buy-now page, which has been relocated due to change in software (and we  
couldn't bother to send you there automatically as it costs us to much and  
you will your spend money with us anyway)'.

That is, of course:
- if you're selling products/services which are also easily bought  
somewhere else. It's all about the cost/advantage ratio.
- if you linked from elsewhere. If everybody enters your site using the  
home-page, it's not a problem either.

Regards,

Martin

>
> More to your question, it looks like a rewrite or redirect is your
> answer to that question ;)
>
> A regex like
>
> $url =~ s#/[^/].*?([0-9]).*\.html$#/showthread.php?t=$1#i;
>
> would do the trick in perl.
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 4:52 PM, AMP Admin<admin at ampprod.com> wrote:
>> Hi again Gabriel,
>>
>> Thank you for your reply.
>>
>> I think SEF URL's are debatable.  The more research I do the more I find
>> them unnecessary.  It also makes it difficult for growth.  What if you
>> change your cms, forum or whatever and the dynamic content is generated
>> differently?  All of your "static lookalike" links are no longer valid.  
>>  I
>> also believe this to be true with major revisions of current cms,  
>> forums and
>> other.  If they do a complete code rewrite as many of them claim with  
>> major
>> revisions then that might also affect urls too.  Eventually you have  
>> more
>> lines of rewrites and garbage in your config than anything else which  
>> is not
>> the intended use.  It may not strain the server but every little bit of
>> helps and if someone thinks they can just let that go then       where  
>> does
>> it stop?
>>
>> Anyway, here's an old article that's worth a read in regards to the  
>> great
>> sef debate. http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/4/emw232456.htm
>>
>> Finally, that brings me back to my original question...
>> Finally, that brings me to my original question...
>> How can I turn:
>> /anyone-doing-late-ridei-t19640.html
>>
>> into:
>> /showthread.php?t=19640
>>
>>
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>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-nginx at sysoev.ru [mailto:owner-nginx at sysoev.ru] On Behalf Of
>> Gabriel Ramuglia
>> Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 4:10 PM
>> To: nginx at sysoev.ru
>> Subject: Re: putting stupid search engine urls back
>>
>> You really shouldn't have to use redirects, I would think. A rewrite
>> (mod rewrite in apache, I think nginx supports similar), will allow
>> people to directly access the friendly urls while your application
>> internally receives a request for the ?something=something urls. If
>> rewrites are using up so much cpu that you'd rather not have search
>> engine traffic than have to take the cpu hit to rewrite urls....
>> something is seriously wrong.
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 8:27 AM, AMP Admin<admin at ampprod.com> wrote:
>>> It's just that it seems to put a strain on the server to redirect
>>> everything.  Maybe I'm doing it wrong.  Also, when people submit  
>>> content
>> to
>>> bookmarks sometimes they get a redirect error.  It says something like
>> 'this
>>> page redirects to' and then it won't bookmark.
>>>
>>> If I can make a nice clean sef that doesn't cause problems like that  
>>> then
>> I
>>> would love to use it.
>>>
>>> Also, if we move to a new platform a year or two down the line then  
>>> those
>>> links woud need another redirect if the new system uses a different  
>>> url.
>>> Does that make sense?
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-nginx at sysoev.ru [mailto:owner-nginx at sysoev.ru] On Behalf Of
>>> Gabriel Ramuglia
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 12:15 AM
>>> To: nginx at sysoev.ru
>>> Subject: Re: putting stupid search engine urls back
>>>
>>> If you do that, you're wasting SEO potential. If nothing else, the
>>> search engines take into account textual content in your urls when
>>> considering the topicality of the page. Without those keywords in the
>>> url, you'll have a harder time ranking for the relevant topics of your
>>> site.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:43 PM, Ilan Berkner<iberkner at gmail.com>  
>>> wrote:
>>>> Perhaps not the appropriate forum... but why / where did you hear  
>>>> that it
>>>> was "stupid" to do / use SEF?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 12:36 AM, AMP Admin <admin at ampprod.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> A few years we went along with the buzz about writing search engine
>>>>> friendly urls.  Well now I think that’s stupid and believe the site  
>>>>> will
>>> get
>>>>> crawled regardless.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, there’s bots and ppl still looking for the sef urls so I  
>>>>> need to
>>>>> change them back.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How can I make:
>>>>>
>>>>> /anyone-doing-late-ridei-t19640.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> into:
>>>>>
>>>>> /showthread.php?t=19640
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>







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