Lack of interest Renaming a Thread Should Not Change its URL

[XenBurger]

Unless there's no way in XF to separate the thread title from the URL.

I do like having my URLS equivalent to thread titles as a default setting - for the first creation of the thread.

But if you need to rename a thread, you dont want to create an entirely new 301 redirect that has to go to a completely different URL.

You want as few redirects as possible. Each redirect = a loss in link juice.

Any backlinks to the previous URL are now going to lose some of their power.

If I have to rename the "Title" of a thread - this should only be equivilent to renaming the Meta Title.

And the H1 on the page.

It should not force a complete rewrite of the page's URL.

Could you guys consider adding a checkbox to the "Edit Thread Title" popup which says something like: "Modify URL to Match New Title"

With default being that it does not do this, and someone has to check the checkbox for it to do so?

 

[rainmotorsports]

The renaming of the thread should be of 0 consequence. Thats how modern SEO friendly URL's work. It's relatively the same in Wordpress and other software? Edit- Wordpress CAN do what xenforo does but doesnt by default.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/renaming-a-thread-should-not-change-its-url.131286/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/blah-blah-blah.131286/

Notice how both of those go to this thread? It's because the number is the ONLY thing in the URL that matters to get the user to its destination. The text is for SEO. If the thread title changes the URL should change. No 301 redirect needed. The url i linked second never existed!

The entire URL is fake. Its run through an router whose job is to make things like the SEO friendly text not break things. The only time the real URL changes is when a thread is moved I believe.

 

[Steve F]

The only time the real URL changes is when a thread is moved I believe.

No, it keeps the same thread id so links remain the same.

 

[Mouth]

If only XF maintained a redirect when you merged a thread, so the old thread id was automatically handled by the route controller to the merged/remaining thread

 

[Aayush]

But he is talking about the redirect of https://xenforo.com/community/threads/blah-blah-blah.131286/ to https://xenforo.com/community/threads/renaming-a-thread-should-not-change-its-url.131286/ which might cause a loss of link juice.

 

[rainmotorsports]

But he is talking about the redirect of https://xenforo.com/community/threads/blah-blah-blah.131286/ to https://xenforo.com/community/threads/renaming-a-thread-should-not-change-its-url.131286/ which might cause a loss of link juice.

Checking the headers the current does return 200 while any other returns 301. I'm not an expert but I also know it's not 1996 anymore either. If Google doesn't handle this well they don't belong in the search engine industry. They have a history of controversial decisions but I doubt this would be one to screw up.

You should see a value of the title changing because most title changed are relevant to search. Especially when a user posts a useless title and a moderator comes to clean it up. But also for versions in titles etc.

 

[XenBurger]

@rainmotorsports -

Thanks for you reply. Super interesting to learn about the ID, etc. I didn't know about that.

Checking the headers the current does return 200 while any other returns 301.

Unfortunately, the fact that there is a 301 redirect there is exactly what I was talking about. It's not really that Google sucks at its job. Its just a universally-known fact that if you have a 301 redirect, you lose significant link juice.

We have to do title changes sometimes because users wrote a poor title. This actually happens pretty often on a site we are focused on optimizing for better rankings.

So my original post unfortunately stands:

The URL should not be changing just because I change the title of the thread.

Only the Title Meta and H1 Title on the page should change.

This is a serious problem.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Its just a universally-known fact that if you have a 301 redirect, you lose significant link juice.

I believe you may lose a teeny tiny bit of link juice, which is overridden by the improvements you presumably made by changing the link title anyway to something more useful for the user and subsequently for SEO

 

[XenBurger]

Thanks everyone @Mr Lucky @rainmotorsports @Aayush

Decided to get some facts, and it turns out the news is better than I could've imagined.

Well maybe. 301's no longer adversely affect Page Rank. I don't know if that's the same as Link Juice though.

I am still scratching my head because it is so engrained that 301's cause link juice loss.

https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo

Great article to read.

Also, from the horse's mouth at least regarding Page Rank:

https://twitter.com/methode/status/757923179641839616?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo

 

[Mouth]

Well maybe. 301's no longer adversely affect Page Rank.

Google actually recommend 301's for URL changes, so XF is doing it right.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en