Question on friendly URLs

[SCTechMan]

Some of our forums are a little wild and the language used for the subject line can be a problem if it's used in the friendly URLs. Is this something anyone else has dealt with and how did you approach the problem.

We definitely want to go with the full friendly URLs but our users that are use the site from work are going to run into trouble with their IT departments if they catch inappropriate (for work) subject lines.

 

[Connor Smith]

There is an option to minimise the content displayed in the URLs.

 

[SCTechMan]

There is an option to minimise the content displayed in the URLs.

But then we would lose the benefit of the friendly URLs, correct?

 

[Connor Smith]

But then we would lose the benefit of the friendly URLs, correct?

Not really. Instead of it being:
www.example.com/threads/random-thread-here.146

It would be something like:
www.example.com/threads/146

So it wouldn't display the thread title in the URL, only the thread ID/ number.

 

[Paul B]

Friendly URLs applies to the index.php portion of the URL.

 

[SCTechMan]

Not really. Instead of it being:
www.example.com/threads/random-thread-here.146

It would be something like:
www.example.com/threads/146

So it wouldn't display the thread title in the URL, only the thread ID/ number.

Yeah unfortunately we want the URL to contain those words for search and SEO purposes. I guess it will come down to how many people it affects and it that's worth us losing those benefits.

 

[Pereira]

You could also use the word censor.

 

[Liam W]

You would probably need an add-on to only apply the censor system to URL construction...

 

[SCTechMan]

You would probably need an add-on to only apply the censor system to URL construction...

That's what I suggested to our IT guys. Wasn't sure if it was possible. It's silly that we even have to worry about this but so many of these people are working on their company's system and it doesn't take a lot cause them trouble.

 

[Ridemonkey]

Given the direction of the web is headed towards HTTPS everywhere, you could consider enabling HTTPS. That would completely eliminate all URLs on your site from being visible to companies that filter traffic.

I know it's not the solution you were looking for, but it would work very well to accomplish your goal without any customization.

 

[SCTechMan]

Given the direction of the web is headed towards HTTPS everywhere, you could consider enabling HTTPS. That would completely eliminate all URLs on your site from being visible to companies that filter traffic.

I know it's not the solution you were looking for, but it would work very well to accomplish your goal without any customization.

Ride, we actually use HTTPS on all areas of our sites so you're saying that will prevent those URLs from being shared with their IT people?

 

[Ridemonkey]

Yep. With HTTPS, basically the only thing that the IT people watching the traffic can see is the destination IP address.

It's possible that, if they have company owned computers, the companies have some kind of logging mechanisms in place on the computers to record what sites they visit. That's much less common than just monitoring the web traffic, though. And if they have such intrusive monitoring mechanisms, it's just as likely that the IT guys will get mad at the site content as the URLs themselves.

You can't really protect from intrusive monitoring, but it's nice to simply minimize the exposure. If you have HTTPS enabled, you've already minimized it about as much as you could possibly do - the IT people can't see the URLs or the site content by casual firewall snooping.

 

[SCTechMan]

Yep. With HTTPS, basically the only thing that the IT people watching the traffic can see is the destination IP address.

It's possible that, if they have company owned computers, the companies have some kind of logging mechanisms in place on the computers to record what sites they visit. That's much less common than just monitoring the web traffic, though. And if they have such intrusive monitoring mechanisms, it's just as likely that the IT guys will get mad at the site content as the URLs themselves.

You can't really protect from intrusive monitoring, but it's nice to simply minimize the exposure. If you have HTTPS enabled, you've already minimized it about as much as you could possibly do - the IT people can't see the URLs or the site content by casual firewall snooping.

Great info Ridemonkey, thank you so much.