GFF Search Engine Optimization
 

GFF is now using a search engine optimization feature for the board. This means that many of the URL names now contain relevant information about post content. Previous URLs that refer to threads still work.

This feature has broken the View First Unread link at the top of every thread.

If you go onto a thread where the first unread is on a different page, it simply takes you back to the first post instead of the first unread. This is one of the most useful tools in all of vBulletin. :\

Edit: I should note that it didn't break it the same way for every thread. Post Your Desktop takes me to a post made on March 4th (the 104th out of 241st post). The G2 Werewolf thread puts me at the first post in the thread.

Nothing personal bobo, but this shit sucks. Can we change it back please? :(

I agree with Tails. It now looks like Microsoft was in charge of designing the URLs.

I agree with Capo's agreement: if I click a thread on the main page, it doesn't go to first unread post, and it's a real inconvenience. Does more harm than good.

This is also causing nearly 500 search bots to be on here right now.


Thanks to Tails for the detective work

This is not a great thing to implement; the broken "Go to first unread post" link is starting to annoy me, not to mention the fact that the URLs look... Blech.

This flat out causes serious problems with viewing certain member profiles.

For example, trying to go to the profile of ^-^ will take me to the profile of ^___^.

I like it, though I did use a similar system on my site.


Goodbye ugly urls.

Hello problems.

Yeah, problems couldn't possibly be fixed, could they?

I don't understand how http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/bo...imization.html is any less uglier than http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2909 (it parsed my link to the other monstrosity :\ ). You can't even show the full link. That's a silly argument for the change.

Basically, from what I can tell, this plugin makes more pages get into search engines and improves keywords. The former makes it so that search engines have a link to the actual page instead of the archived page. Which is fine, but if the goal is massive amounts of users through the search engines (which I think many regulars here would be against, though I'm not really), it would be much more helpful if everything on the forum worked perfectly first. The latter doesn't even make sense here considering the utter hesitency to even put ads on the site, so I'll assume that's not it.

If this plugin is staying isn't there a way to make it so the URLs aren't so darn long? What if it was just /forums/<thread #>.html? That doesn't ruin the functionality of the plugin (spiders still see it the same way) and it gets the entire thread title out of the URL.

Edit:

Those Yahoo Spiders sure like to check out Community Commons! =o "MUST KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT MY POTENTIAL NEW FRIENDS" "Oh no a spider, get out!"

They could be fixed by letting you keep that crap on your site and having bobo set our shit straight again.

Maybe we could keep you on your site too but that's just wishful thinking.

Yeah, because Bobo couldn't possibly know about fixing stuff.

Bobo is about as good at fixing stuff as you are at not getting on peoples nerves.

Which isn't very much in case you missed it.

Ok, so maybe Bobo deserves a little more credit than that, but these links are still awful.

The links take all the myserious fun out of a clicking a link in #gfchat.
Plus their ugliness causes 1,000 pains of eye sight.

edit:
<Q-chan> And now if someone changes the topic name, a previous url won't work :(
<Q-chan> or moves it, for that matter
<Bigblah> that makes sense
<Krizzzopolis> that is ALSO TRUE!
<Bigblah> wait never mind
<Bigblah> it doesn't just make sense
<Bigblah> IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS DAMMIT BOBO

In order to test whether Q's statement is true, I shall move this thread!

[17:41:53] <a_lurker> SCIENCE

AUTO-REDIRECT TEST COMPLETE

[12:41:27] <Bigblah> test this
[12:41:42] <Q-chan> IT MOVED
[12:41:44] <Q-chan> FUCK
[12:41:48] <Q-chan> NOW WHAT DO WE DO
[12:41:56] <Bigblah> now you post an apology
[12:42:01] <Bigblah> and i blame you for my misstatement
[12:42:05] <Q-chan> ;_;
[12:42:09] <Krizzzopolis> ok it auto-redirects
[12:42:12] <Q-chan> it's still ugly damnit
[12:42:15] <Q-chan> ;_____;

You can still whine that View First Unread is broken. Makes me wanna say cry.

As for viewing ^____^ and ^-^'s profiles, the links would work if they used the right "code" or whatever that represents the ^ things.

The only one I know off by heart is %20, which represents a space.

Just a question. With all these yahoo slurp spider 'users' that are looking at all the threads. Would they count towards the google ad impression?