SEO / URLs

bobemoe · 2016-12-26 20:44:27

Just having a browse round the forums, great to see it gaining momentum!

I'm a bit worried it might take a SEO hit because of duplicate content issues. Specifically the www and index.php issues described here:
http://www.ragepank.com/articles/3/prev … e-content/

Additionally when accessing the forum with www. in the URL, the login cookies aren't shared across the subdomain. Meaning I can be logged in on www. and logged out on the non-www domain of the same site. Potential here for usability confusion, especially if search engines index both "versions" of the site and I arrive from a link different from that which I have open in another tab. The above link explains how to add a rewrite rule to redirect www to non-www or visa versa which removes these concerns.

This fluxbb module looks like it would solve the index.php issue.
https://fluxbb.org/resources/mods/fluxr … ssentials/
It also adds keywords to the URLs, used to be good SEO practice, though current thoughts are that it's not so necessary these days:
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/que … -redundant
If you do use that module, I'd add it to a staging or dev site first and make sure the old URLs are correctly 301 redirected to the new ones, or it could cause a SEO hit to any pages that have already been indexed. Best to do it while the site is small and new rather than further down the line though.

I'm no SEO expert, more the dev that ends up implementing the SEO changes on the server, so I've cleaned up situations like this many times, and happy to help or give any further thoughts, or even test out the module on staging site if needed?

Last edited by bobemoe (2016-12-26 20:45:27)

Chanku · 2016-12-27 02:48:12

bobemoe wrote:

I'm a bit worried it might take a SEO hit because of duplicate content issues. Specifically the www and index.php issues described here:
http://www.ragepank.com/articles/3/prev … e-content/
Additionally when accessing the forum with www. in the URL, the login cookies aren't shared across the subdomain. Meaning I can be logged in on www. and logged out on the non-www domain of the same site. Potential here for usability confusion, especially if search engines index both "versions" of the site and I arrive from a link different from that which I have open in another tab. The above link explains how to add a rewrite rule to redirect www to non-www or visa versa which removes these concerns.

First to address the issue between the www and non-www domains and logins. I believe this is because of how FluxBB works, I think, It assumes all traffic is coming from the root url, that is dev1galaxy.org in our case. However it isn't.

Secondly the link assumes we use Apache for our web-server. We don't and instead went with nginx. However I went ahead and modified the nameserver to redirect www.dev1galaxy.org to dev1galaxy.org so this issue should be fixed soon (if it doesn't I've obviously screwed something up and I'll have to fix it )

This fluxbb module looks like it would solve the index.php issue.
https://fluxbb.org/resources/mods/fluxr … ssentials/
It also adds keywords to the URLs, used to be good SEO practice, though current thoughts are that it's not so necessary these days:
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/que … -redundant
If you do use that module, I'd add it to a staging or dev site first and make sure the old URLs are correctly 301 redirected to the new ones, or it could cause a SEO hit to any pages that have already been indexed. Best to do it while the site is small and new rather than further down the line though.

This hasn't been updated to be compatible with our version of FluxBB, which is version 1.5.10. Further I'm unsure if this really is that big of an issue though...

golinux · 2016-12-27 03:50:18

http://forums.debian.net does not have keywords added to the URLs and it does just fine. In fact, I've never seen that done on a forum. But blogs do often add titles to the URL . . .

bobemoe · 2016-12-27 09:23:18

Secondly the link assumes we use Apache for our web-server. We don't and instead went with nginx. However I went ahead and modified the nameserver to redirect www.dev1galaxy.org to dev1galaxy.org so this issue should be fixed soon (if it doesn't I've obviously screwed something up and I'll have to fix it )

I'm not sure if its possable to set up a 301 redirect at the nameserver level? The www site is failing to connect for me now. I'm so sorry to have instigated this and caused an issue I was trying to prevent! I'm sure it'll yield benefits in the long run.

I've worked on a few nginx servers too so have tinkered with it a little. You can set up a redirect for nginx:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7947 … r-11733363

This hasn't been updated to be compatible with our version of FluxBB, which is version 1.5.10. Further I'm unsure if this really is that big of an issue though...

Aww shame the module is out of date. I've not used fluxbb so it was just something I spotted after a quick search. I agree keywords in URLs probably isnt a big boost any more as it used to be. The main benefit I saw from that module was that it removed the index.php from the front page. As we stand at the moment the same content is accessible from https://dev1galaxy.org/index.php and https://dev1galaxy.org (with www removed its only 2 URLs not 4 combinations) Again this could probably be fixed with an nginx redirect, or maybe there is a simpler module to do it that doesn't add keywords to URLs. Maybe its not such a big deal either, its only the front page, now the www issue is being fixed there is only one URL for each topic, which are the main content areas.

bobemoe · 2016-12-27 09:41:22

I've just been doing some reading about DNS and it confirmed my suspicions, seems its not possible to set up a redirect with NS/DNS. Your domain registrar may offer redirect features but they will have to have a webserver and route your HTTP requests via that to preform the redirect.. an unnecessary extra step.

I'd recommend putting DNS back how it was and using nginx config to achieve everything.

Apologies again for causing trouble.

Refs on DNS redirect:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/ … WMDud30RWQ
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/que … eeping-the
http://serverfault.com/questions/385893 … cords-only

golinux · 2016-12-28 04:07:08

@bobemoe: Well, you're just trying to improve the forum. No apologies needed for that. I'll let Chanku sort it out - backend so isn't my thing . . .

bobemoe · 2016-12-29 12:19:35

Ok cool, glad all is well, good to see the site serving up again on the www. Guess it's on of my pet fears to see a site not responding

I have done a fair bit with DNS/hosting/server config/web apps etc so if you need a hand with anything in that area, just give me a shout!

Chanku · 2016-12-31 01:11:52

The redirect should be setup now

bobemoe · 2016-12-31 09:50:48

Yep, confirmed, looking good

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2016-12-26 20:44:27

SEO / URLs

#2 2016-12-27 02:48:12

Re: SEO / URLs

#3 2016-12-27 03:50:18

Re: SEO / URLs

#4 2016-12-27 09:23:18

Re: SEO / URLs

#5 2016-12-27 09:41:22

Re: SEO / URLs

#6 2016-12-28 04:07:08

Re: SEO / URLs

#7 2016-12-29 12:19:35

Re: SEO / URLs

#8 2016-12-31 01:11:52

Re: SEO / URLs

#9 2016-12-31 09:50:48

Re: SEO / URLs

Board footer