Long Thread URLs

[RichardGaspa]

We have only been using XenForo for approximately two months so let me apologize if the following question is a basic newbi problem that I should already know the answer too.

Our thread / post URLs are extremely long. When I or a member of the forum links the thread to Facebook, Twitter, etc. the posting looks very messy and unattractive. ( you can see what I am talking about here) Is there a way that XenForo can shorten our thread URLS and make them look nicer when they are linked?

When we link to Twitter, the thread URL takes most of the 140 allowable chatterers that can be used in a Twitter posting.

 

[rdn]

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/92087/
Disable Title on URL.
Admin > Option > SEO

 

[BassMan]

... or try using one of the URL shortener

 

[RichardGaspa]

@RoldanLT

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/92087/
Disable Title on URL.
Admin > Option > SEO

Thank you for the suggestion. If I do this, do I have to worry about all the links that were already added in past Facebook, twitter and email postings? Will they still work?

 

[rdn]

Will they still work?

Yes of course.

 

[AndyB]

Disable Title on URL.

That's what I do, I prefer the shorter URL's.

 

[rdn]

That's what I do, I prefer the shorter URL's.

I hope no SEO disadvantage?

 

[BassMan]

Just wondering if short url's affect SEO...

 

[AndyB]

One could argue that URL's which don't contain titles can actually be better for SEO. The idea is that instead of just pasting a URL with the tile included, the poster needs to describe the URL in the post, therefore this might actually be better for SEO.

Example with thread title in URL:

This is what I have.

http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/threads/sidi-crossfire-2-ta.128115/

Example without thread title in URL:

I really like my Sidi Crossfire TA boots.

http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/threads/128115/

 

[MaximilianKohler]

Might there be a way to simply limit their length rather than remove them completely?

For reference, there are settings that can be changed to modify thread & node titles, so I imagine there would be something similar for URLs https://xenforo.com/community/threads/increasing-the-150-character-thread-title-limit.215208/

 

[Suzanne O]

Make it a rule on your forum that thread titles are not to be longwinded.
Tell everyone that it's not an infraction but that a staff member can shorten the title of the thread.
For example you might like cat breeds

Cat breeds

Then in the comment box you ask what's your favourite cat breed?

instead of

What's your favourite breed of cat?
As your title.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

I'm actually trying to lengthen the thread titles to 300 characters. I'm moving reddit communities over to XF and trying to replicate reddit titles & URLs.

 

[TPerry]

I'm actually trying to lengthen the thread titles to 300 characters. I'm moving reddit communities over to XF and trying to replicate reddit titles & URLs.

I still don't see the point in titles being longer (slightly) than what entire social media posts used to be (and in some cases still are).
I can't tell you the number of times I've seen over on Reddit the actual "post" be the title of the post, and the post have usually simply having an image in it.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

Here are some examples I just pulled from reddit:

Take Care of Maya (2023) - After a family brings their daughter to the ER for her rare disease, she becomes trapped in the hospital indefinitely when the mother is suspected of Munchausen by Proxy and an emotionally devastating ordeal with Child Protective Services ensues. [01:44:00]

Catastrophic climate 'doom loops' could start in just 15 years, new study warns - Climate "tipping points," such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, could come within a human lifetime, scientists have said.

Researchers determined a person’s biological sex can be confirmed by their hand odor with extreme accuracy — the novel approach can assist in forensic investigations when other biometric indicators, such as DNA and fingerprints, are limited or non-existent.

Fewer teens now perceive themselves as overweight, according to international study of more than 745,000 adolescents. On weight: "The increase in underestimation might be a sign for the need for interventions to strengthen correct weight perception," said the authors.

I want to be able to include full content in titles like this; both for easier perusing and searching (checkmark "search titles only").

 

[TPerry]

And you simply prove the point I stated.... those are WAY long for titles.
That's the whole point of having a post box.. your topic title should be a synopsis of the actual post, and not the post itself.
Just because they "do it on Reddit" doesn't equate to it being sensible.... looks more like lazy to me.
If you want "easier searching"... pay for the ES add-on, @Xon's ES extension and use them.

 

[Chromaniac]

wordpress solved this by offering a custom post slug field. some other cms software truncate the thread title to 4-5 words to ensure a shorter link. xenforo doesn't. and link changes every time you make a change to the title of the thread. used to annoy me but i do not care anymore.

you can get a fairly short link by using route filters to shorten threads part of the link and then disabling title tag in link. i used that for a while but eventually moved back to default settings. links really do not matter in the end because no one is going to type them. and most social platforms truncate the links for display already or completely hide them and show a preview.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

links really do not matter in the end because no one is going to type them. and most social platforms truncate the links for display already or completely hide them and show a preview.

I think URLs matter for SEO. It's good to have keywords in the URLs.

Since the other changes to title & node length seem to be handled by the mysql database, I did a search for "mysql url length" and the only relevant thing I found was https://stackoverflow.com/questions/219569/best-database-field-type-for-a-url

I ran SHOW TABLES; (MariaDB) but there is none for "url".

I read that it might be something handled by your web server (nginx in my case), but based on my search for "nginx url length" that doesn't seem like the right path to pursue.

 

[Chromaniac]

i mean everything that people believe about what google likes and doesn't is just intuition based on personal experiences. google keeps on saying to generate content for people and not search engine spiders. and yet they have so many policies about what is good and what is not good. i do like having keywords in url because it lets me find them faster from the browser address bar.

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[Wildcat Media]

It would be cool if XenForo had a built-in short URL feature. It could be based on the board's domain name, perhaps like www.domain.com/go/SXu4d3Gw, yet it would still unfurl into the full URL.

 

[Chromaniac]

https://xenforo.com/community/posts/1636286 is supported but has to be created manually.