XF 1.4 Keyword rich URLs

[zastavra]

Hello,

If you were starting today a forum, what kind of URL structure would you choose? Will you choose the "include content title in the URLs" or you would prefer to leave it off?

Do you think that keyword rich titles nowdays still have SEO value comparing to a cleaner full friendly URLs structure without any words in them?

Also, if you where running a forum for several years and you were using full friendly URL without including content titles in them, would you consider to change it to "include content titles in the URLs" in order to achieve better SERPs?

And finally the last question... is include content titles in the URLs option is more resource consuming that leaving the same option off?

Thank you.

 

[Mike]

I would enable the title in URLs simply because it's more user friendly, regardless of SEO. It means that someone looking at the URL can have an idea about the content they should expect.

Resource usage differences would be minimal. I wouldn't worry about that until you actually have that sort of problem (and then you profile to find the main bottleneck).

 

[zastavra]

Resource usage differences would be minimal. I wouldn't worry about that until you actually have that sort of problem (and then you profile to find the main bottleneck).

Mike, how is Xenforo redirecting URLs between the two these options? I mean, I'm using the non-include content titles in the URL option right now, what would happen to them if I change the URL structure to include content titles option? Will all the old URLs point to 404 page? Am I gonna lose all the search engine rankings that I have right now?

 

[Mike]

It will 301 between them.

 

[zastavra]

I'd like to set up server side (nginx) 301 redirects from domain.com/threads/12345/ to domain.com/threads/page-title-blah-blah.12345/

Can you help me with the rules please?

 

[Mike]

XenForo does this already. You don't have to do anything.

 

[zastavra]

I now that, I have already tested. I just need the redirection code, if it is not a big trouble for you to share it.

Thank you.

 

[Mike]

You would need to define individual redirections for every thread you want to redirect if you're trying to do it in Nginx directly.