Re: searching by tags....

Ashley Sheridan schreef: > On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 11:22 +0100, Nathan Rixham wrote: >> Jochem Maas wrote: >>> Ashley Sheridan schreef: >>>> On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 00:58 +0100, Nathan Rixham wrote: >>>>> Ashley Sheridan wrote: >>>>>> On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 01:17 +0200, Jochem Maas wrote: >>>>>>> Nathan Rixham schreef: >>>>>>>> Ashley Sheridan wrote: >>>>>>>>> On Tue, 2008-10-14 at 14:54 -0700, Ryan S wrote: >>>>>>>>>> quite a few sites seem to have a very neat way of >>>>>>>>>> implementing this >>>>>>>>>> with (url rewriting?) something like >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> http://sitename/blog/tags/tag-comes-here/ >>>>>>>>> As for getting those search terms, well a link in a page can >>>>>>>>> contain GET >>>>>>>>> values, such as >>>>>>>>> http://www.somedomain.com/blog?tag=search_term . >>>>>>>>> Alternatively, you could use mod-rewrite to rewrite the URL and >>>>>>>>> turn the >>>>>>>>> path into tag variables. This is the same as the above but with >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> added benefit that users can type in tags directly more easily, >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>> there are apparently benefits for SEO with this method as well >>>>>>>>> (but I'm >>>>>>>>> not sure how true that is) >>>>>>>> it's very true; from the google webmaster guidelines: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a >>>>>>>> "?" >>>>>>>> character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls >>>>>>>> dynamic >>>>>>>> pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters >>>>>>>> short and >>>>>>>> the number of them few. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> previously it was text along the lines of "google doesn't >>>>>>>> index all >>>>>>>> pages with query parameters, so avoid them where possible" >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> additionally one of the weightier points in categorising pages >>>>>>>> within >>>>>>>> the SERPS is the text in the url (especially if the page is >>>>>>>> actually >>>>>>>> about /the_tag_in_the_url : see >>>>>>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=tags) >>>>>>> ^-- some what ironic :-) >>>>>>> >>>>>> Yeah I saw that too... >>>>>> >>>>>> What always gets me is that forums always feature really high on search >>>>>> results, and I've yet to see one of these forums use URL rewriting! I >>>>>> really think this belief about query-less URLs being more search engine >>>>>> friendly is outdated. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Ash >>>>>> www.ashleysheridan.co.uk >>>>>> >>>>> a search engines main job is to send people to what they are looking >>>>> for, not what an seo has determined they should be seeing, as such >>>>> "content is king". >>>>> >>>>> Forums, lists and newsgroups tend to hold more specific content on >>>>> exactly what the user is searching for, hence why google shows it high >>>>> (as it's one of the few documents on the net which relate most directly >>>>> to what was searched for [long tail search terms]); additionally all the >>>>> aforementioned often have a trail of replies; sometimes this is a bonus >>>>> as the replies repeat the keyword terms; however sometimes it's to the >>>>> detriment, particularly when they wander off topic. >>>>> >>>>> It's also worth noting that sites which update frequently, especially >>>>> those who update sitemaps and send out pings get crawled more frequently >>>>> and thus indexed faster. On hot-topics this has a knock on effect, the >>>>> posts get crawled by scrapers and content harvesters and re-published >>>>> (often with a link back) - and this helps as the vote count for the >>>>> original forum post goes up due to the link backs + the original source >>>>> is detected as such and given prominence over the copies (most of the time). >>>>> >>>>> Further people take care to title their posts/messages correctly in >>>>> order to attract answers quickly, this text is then repeated on the >>>>> forum page in all the prominent places (title, permalink, heading >>>>> tags..) and further still, the post/message is normally perfectly >>>>> matched to the user specified title - so it's natural seo at it's >>>>> best. >>>>> (Worth having a read up on contextual and semantic analysis as well) >>>>> >>>>> Next up, the sites weight, as forums often have thousands (or hundreds >>>>> of thousands) of pages/posts, and high volume traffic, the site is >>>>> deemed more important and thus higher ranking, which brings in more >>>>> traffic and so it spirals. On this note it's also worth considering that >>>>> google track what you click on so if searchers continually click item 3 >>>>> in the search results, over time they'll move it up as it's been >>>>> classed >>>>> as most accurate for that search (more.. obviously due to wide use of >>>>> analytics and checking when a user comes back to the results to click >>>>> another they can also harvest accuracy data by comparing bounce rates >>>>> etc and adjust accordingly). >>>>> >>>>> so much more on this subject but that's about the top and bottom of it >>>>> in this scenario. >>>>> >>>>> *yawn* getting late >>>>> >>>> You're preaching to the converted on this topic, I've already put >>>> together a couple of articles on my site about it in the past. What I >>>> was saying was that the sites that seem to feature so prominently on >>>> listings were in fact using querystring URLs; the very thing that SEO >>>> guides tell us not to use. I think it's just an outdated belief that URL >>>> rewriting is better, as clearly it doesn't ever seem to be. >>> obviously the converted weren't listening. >>> >> indeed, the point being (perhaps I didn't make it clear) is that the >> forum posts you are talking about are listed highly due to several other >> major factors, the difference between using dynamic (querystring) and >> static urls only comes in to play when all other factors are pretty much >> equal; in this scenario the static urls with keywords in will *always* >> out rank the dynamic urls. (fact: a keyword in a static url is +1 to the >> weight of the page, without it you can't get that +1). >> >> Additionally (feel free to test this) a site with 3000 unique pages all >> using static urls will invariably get fully indexed - whereas the same >> site with 3000 dynamic urls generally will not. >> >> -- >> nathan ( nathan@kraya.co.uk ) >> { >> Senior Web Developer >> php + java + flex + xmpp + xml + ecmascript >> web development edinburgh | http://kraya.co.uk/ >> } >> > > The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of SEO 'guides' out there say > that URLs with querystrings DO NOT GET INDEXED. Clearly that's rubbish, > as they feature highly on the listings. >> > Also, if you'd have read one of > my previous posts, you'll note that I did concede that different parts > of the URL may have different weightings, which is the only reason to > use URL re-writing over querystring URLs. > > I'd like to see what data you're basing you facts on, as I've looked > pretty extensively over the past few years, and have not yet once seen > such evidence that can give hard figures. Also, you bandy the 3000 pages > figure about. Have you tested this properly? A proper test would involve > 3000 unique (and by unique I mean not at all similar) searches, across > several search engines, and tally all the results from the first pages > of each search to determine the ratio of querystring URLs to static > URLs. Sorry, but until you can offer *actual evidence* for your supposed > facts, then I'm inclined to go on what I have tested to be true so far. > In fact, I've just recently completed SEO work on a site with about > 75,000 pages, most of which are querystring URLs, and the client has > remarked how better the traffic has been. I doubt I'd get much > improvement if I went for static URLs on the site, but I don't have any > evidence for that, and I'm willing to admit it. I'd rebuff this but it would feel like Im feeding a troll.