Implemented Please provide the Standard URL option

[AndyB]

I hope there will be an option in the admin cp to choose Standard URLs. I really dislike Friendly URLs and hope we are not forced to use them on our own forums.

Perhaps Kier or Mike could provide and example of what the Standard URL would look like to display the following:

1) a forum
2) a thread
3) a post within a thread
4) an attachment

Thank you.

 

[feldon30]

Next is that it will stay the same for ever. More important than evething else.

The thread title in the URL is ornamental:

• http://xenforo.com/community/thread...ard-url-option.2333/
• http://xenforo.com/community/threads/cedivad-seo-test.2333/
• http://xenforo.com/community/threads/rename-thread-is-no-problem.2333/
• http://xenforo.com/community/threads/seriously-relax-dude.2333/

Next?

 

[cedivad]

Yea, in my point of view it is.

 

[AndyB]

What cedivad is eluding to is that by using a hash instead of an actual number, sites that have links to your forum will always work. Even if you later change forum software and have thread and post id's that are different, a look up table will always point to the correct thread and posts. Pretty clever indeed.

 

[cedivad]

Thank you Andy

 

[MrBrian]

I can only say that this combination can get messy if the number of categories increase.

So let me ask you this: - what would that resource be called or identified with? We need that to build a URL that uniquely locates that resource. Whether it ends up as global ID or some kind of context-sensitive ID, the URL has to refer to that. Would it make sense if we created a ID called qUKjgY8a for a search result, and use the URL http://www.example.com/search/qUKjgY8a? But then how does the user remember this to be able to locate the resource again?

3) I will be using a title less URL for my next installation, something like site.com/qUKjgY8a
.

Wait, are we talking about human readable URL?

Oh well, to me, the most fundamental driving factor is to be as human-friendly as possible and the identifiers should be made URL friendly It’s SEO practice to design a readable URL. This is easily seen when you do a search in Google, and the search results will highlight any of your search terms in the URL’s of the results. Obviously, Google looks at what is in the URL itself and not just the page.

URL design is really not that hard, it just takes understanding core principles and best practices, and then applying them. And secondly, all you need is to just escalate conversations to raging debates when simple questions are asked about proper URL usage in context of Web Architecture.

However, I believe every forum owners will see huge improvements compared to their prior rankings if they focus on URL design and create a URL management plan. The good news is that URL design is mostly a one time endeavour assuming site maintainers adhere to the management plan, at least until there is a full site rearchitecture.

But all of the whys and wherefores regarding URL planning and design are beyond the scope of this post, and instead will be the subject of many posts in the future.

 

[feldon30]

If you migrate from phpBB to vBulletin, there is an .htaccess file and php script that provides redirects for all old forum URLs to the new URLs. There is nothing preventing other forum software (including XenForo) from including the same type of tool. Then you don't have to worry because all old URLs going back 10 years will redirect forever.

XenForo is designed for usability for users, moderators, and administrators first.

Just personally, I would not want to be a member of a forum where the URLs are 6 characters of gobbledygook. It bothers me enough to see those URLs in Twitter feeds, but for every forum thread URL to be that? But if that is what a forum admin wants to do, I'm not going to belabor the point.

Clearly there is no one URL structure that will satisfy every site admin. And I think it's clear that we're not all on the same page about what makes good SEO. Even the experts will tell you it's more voodoo than science.

 

[Kier]

One thing that is still a little unclear to me. If this following URL

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/implemented-please-provide-the-standard-url-option.2333/

rewrites to index.php internally, what does index.php do with it? Does index.php then send it off to another file such as showthread.php ??

Index.php is the gateway to our front controller, which is the entry point to the MVC framework. There are no such files as the equivalent of showthread.php or forumdisplay.php - that is yesterday's way, the new way is very different.

 

[Kier]

What cedivad is eluding to is that by using a hash instead of an actual number, sites that have links to your forum will always work. Even if you later change forum software and have thread and post id's that are different, a look up table will always point to the correct thread and posts. Pretty clever indeed.

Wait, you're saying that replacing a URL that is human-readable and more likely than not contains valuable cues as to the nature of it's destination content, with an amorphous blob of meaningless text, in order to deal with the extreme edge case of changing forum software, is clever? no offence to cedivad, but in my opinion that approach is ludicrous.

 

[cedivad]

Just personally, I would not want to be a member of a forum where the URLs are 6 characters of gobbledygook. It bothers me enough to see those URLs in Twitter feeds, but for every forum thread URL to be that? But if that is what a forum admin wants to do, I'm not going to belabor the point.

What about the old shotrhead.php?p=1234567 than?

It's just a matter of preferences, there is not the right and the wrong.

 

[cedivad]

Wait, you're saying that replacing a URL that is human-readable and more likely than not contains valuable cues as to the nature of it's destination content, with an amorphous blob of meaningless text, in order to deal with the extreme edge case of changing forum software, is clever? no offence to cedivad, but in my opinion that approach is ludicrous.

Don't worry about offense. The point is that web is juang (don't find the word... Like a baby anyway). What will happen in 30 years when we will have almost every URL older than 10 years that point to a 404 server error? Because that is what appens at the end of the road.

 

[Kier]

Don't worry about offense. The point is that web is juang (don't find the word... Like a baby anyway). What will happen in 30 years when we will have almost every URL older than 10 years that point to a 404 server error? Because that is what appens at the end of the road.

I'm far more interested in providing URLs that are meaningful to people -now-. The Internet of 2040 will be a fundamentally different place, and its users will have all new ways to find and access content. Attempting to preempt that by inconveniencing today's users? Just doesn't seem even remotely sensible to me.

 

[cedivad]

Yea, I have to admit that maybe in 2040 with neural Internet interface it will be slightly different.
Maybe I have to take a year off and think about this problem

 

[Erik]

What about the old shotrhead.php?p=1234567 than?

This isn't any better. In fact, it's worse, because it is still meaningless but now it's even longer than before.

 

[Kier]

This isn't any better. In fact, it's worse, because it is still meaningless but now it's even longer than before.

Oh I have to disagree there - I can at least tell from that URL that it's going to take me to view a thread.

 

[erich37]

I'm far more interested in providing URLs that are meaningful to people -now-. The Internet of 2040 will be a fundamentally different place, and its users will have all new ways to find and access content. Attempting to preempt that by inconveniencing today's users? Just doesn't seem even remotely sensible to me.

Hey Kier,

are you saying XF is not future-proof way into 2040 ?

I always thought a "lifetime" licence will work fine as long as I am alive

 

[AndyB]

Index.php is the gateway to our front controller, which is the entry point to the MVC framework. There are no such files as the equivalent of showthread.php or forumdisplay.php - that is yesterday's way, the new way is very different.

Thank you Kier.

I found two very good links which help me learn a little bit about what MVC framework is.

http://jimkeller.blogspot.com/2008/02/mvc-and-you-partners-in-freedom.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX0eIdWZQhQ

 

[Erik]

Oh I have to disagree there - I can at least tell from that URL that it's going to take me to view a thread.

In that case you could do /thread/1234567.

Honestly, if I was forced to pick one or the other, I would go with /1234567 over shortthread.php?p=1234567, which is much longer (defeats the purpose of a short URL) and uses ugly query parameters.

Although none of these are ideal.

 

[Kier]

I didn't know shortness was a goal here?

 

[Erik]

I didn't know shortness was a goal here?

Well, the example he provided above was "shotrhead.php?=x", which I assume he just mis-spelled and "meant "shortthread.php". And others seemed to interpret one of his goals as being a short URL:

I would never use SEO where the "human readable urls" are replaced with hashes, just for SEO short link reasoning.

Just personally, I would not want to be a member of a forum where the URLs are 6 characters of gobbledygook. It bothers me enough to see those URLs in Twitter feeds, but for every forum thread URL to be that? But if that is what a forum admin wants to do, I'm not going to belabor the point.

It's not that important anyway as both are bad.

 

[Sami]

Funny thing that human readability when URLs are displayed like this. http://xenforo.com/community/thread...33/page-6#post-48168

I tend to ignore how the URL looks in full. Not saying it's a bad thing though.