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How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166448]

Tue, 13 December 2011 01:01

jm2morri

Messages: 225
Registered: January 2009
Location: Stratford, Ontario, Canad...

Karma: 0

Senior Member

Hello,

When I click on the "test link" button in the control panel->URL's & Directories I get a message that says

"Disabled feature
This feature has been disabled by the system administrator."

What feature is it exactly and what do I need to enable to get this to work. I have complete control over my apache server.

Cheers,

James.

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166449 is a reply to message #166448]

Tue, 13 December 2011 01:52

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer

You may need to enable PATH_INFO for Apache. See description just below the "Test link":

Quote:

Use PATH_INFO based URLs that looks like http://forum.com/index.php/a/b/c/. This makes the URLs easier to remember and more search engine friendly. Unfortunately this feature does not work with all web servers. Check if your web server supports it by clicking on the above test link. If you see the forum's front page, you can enable it.

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166450 is a reply to message #166449]

Tue, 13 December 2011 02:19

jm2morri

Messages: 225
Registered: January 2009
Location: Stratford, Ontario, Canad...

Karma: 0

Senior Member

Right, but I didn't know what the apache setting was. For those who care, you have to do something like the following:

<Directory /var/www>
        Options +Includes
        AcceptPathInfo On
</Directory>

It's the AcceptPathInfo line that matters in this case.

James.

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166451 is a reply to message #166450]

Tue, 13 December 2011 02:48

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

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Core Developer

Thanks, I've updated the documentation at
http://cvs.prohost.org/index.php/Global_Settings_Manager#Use_PATH_INFO_styl e_URLs

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166473 is a reply to message #166451]

Sun, 18 December 2011 00:49

ShineOn

Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011

Karma: 1

Member

Any plans to make the path_info "style" URLs into actual friendly urls? Instead of like this

//host/a/1/0/0/1234

make it more like this?

//host/category_name/forum_name/topic_name/post#

Inquiring minds want to know... Wink

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166475 is a reply to message #166473]

Sun, 18 December 2011 04:53

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

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Core Developer

None that I'm aware of.
You are welcome to start working on it.

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166553 is a reply to message #166475]

Sun, 15 January 2012 23:06

ShineOn

Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011

Karma: 1

Member

Frank. before I start working on it, I need to know -

What was the reason for doing the "friendly urls" using the path_info logic, which assigns a one- to three-character code to every possible dynamic path type in the forum, instead of focusing on the forum content? i.e. f=forum, t=topic, m=message, u=user info, i=index, l=login, pl=show polls, sp=show posts, bml=bookmark lists, and so on, for every possible view a user could encounter.

My thought is, if the "path_info" stuff is scrapped altogether, it would be possible to present the forum content using a combination of php code and .htaccess rewrite rules in a SEO-friendly way, while leaving things that you really don't want search-engine-indexed as dynamic URLs...

You don't need SEO-optimization for things like user info, bookmark lists, buddy lists, the login dialog, post rating dialog, etc. You only need it for the forum topics and the messages posted in those topics.

Taking it down to that, it would mean the rewrite php would have to read the category names, forum names, topic/thread names, and message numbers, and be able to reparse the text to url-friendly format and handle category and forum nesting, for forums and threads and messages only - and the .htaccess rewrite rules would have to handle things like ampersand translation, and be configured only to rewrite urls that aren't in dynamic format and pass dynamic format urls as-is.

Not only is the current path-info style url not all that "friendly," it seems like it's doing way more than it needs to. Look at mediawiki - they don't freindly-url-ize everything, like all the edit and maintenance dialogs which remain in dynamic PHP format - they only "friendly-ize" the wiki pages, which they want to be crawled.

If FUDforum were to decide to scrap the whole path_info logic and target the content only for doing the friendly url rewriting, it would make the whole job easier... Let me know.

[Updated on: Sun, 15 January 2012 23:08]

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166554 is a reply to message #166553]

Mon, 16 January 2012 11:34

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

Senior Member
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Unfortunately I don't know the history behind the PATH_INFO theme. I agree, it is slightly over-engineered (as it also makes some private URL's search engine friendly), but it works extremely well. It can be optimized, but preferably not replaced. I would prefer a solution that is "pluggable" (can be enabled by the forum administrator). We should be able to introduce new SEO themes (similar to PATH_INFO) for the job.

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166561 is a reply to message #166554]

Tue, 17 January 2012 00:55

ShineOn

Messages: 53
Registered: July 2011

Karma: 1

Member

I agree that a "pluggable" option would be best, but I would like it to be one that would be applicable across-the-board on all templates, not just be relegated to one template. The way it is now, you have to use the path_info template.

Why is that, exactly? It appears at first blush that something is included in all of the php and inc files in the default template before "compile." Is the path_info logic all over the place or is it confined to index.php, or are changes made to all of those php and inc files? (I figured I'd ask someone who probably knows, rather than try to examine all those files looking for path_info related code...)

If the change is only to index.php, perhaps the code can always be there in the base index.php, in all templates where index.php exists, and you just add another option code to turn it on? Or perhaps (still always in index.php) you add some other config setting to ADM CP to turn it on. Perhaps another field or two in a table or two, or another table specifically to tie true friendly urls to the dynamic url format and maintain uniqueness?

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Re: How to Setup Search Engine Friendly URL's [message #166565 is a reply to message #166561]

Wed, 18 January 2012 04:06

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer

Having all the (URL related) code in index.php makes sense. Why don't you just implement your changes, and let's see how it can be integrated into the existing code. Nobody here knows the history behind PATH_INFO anyway. It is old legacy code and I definitely wasn't around when it was originally developed. Regardless the code/method used, if we implement the same or better functionality, all users will be happy.

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