URLs of board pages

  • App
    WoltLab Suite Forum

    The URLs of the boards pages are not visually pleasing for users and for search engines. By default should be the same as the pages of threads (.../?pageNo=2) without search filters and only with page number.

    Visually users must decipher the contents of the URL in order to understand. And for the webmasters is very difficult to control the URLs in the search engines.

    For example (the same page with different filters indexed by Google)
    .../?pageNo=2&sortField=topic&sortOrder=ASC
    .../?pageNo=2&sortField=cumulativeLikes&sortOrder=ASC
    .../?pageNo=2&sortField=lastPostTime&sortOrder=DESC&filterByStatus=unread
    and more.

    Does it make any sense? for developers maybe, but no for users and webmasters.

    This creates duplicate content and duplicate links. It is also very costly to manage all the URLs in the webmaster tools of the search engines. Google should only index the standard page (.../?pageNo=2) without filters.

    You can check the attached image. It is a one example with Google results. You can see repeated the same page with different urls.

    Please consider this.

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Aethior (15. September 2023 um 01:14)

  • is this from a WBB3 or WBB4? in WBB4, this should not longer be present as a caconical link is embedded ensuring only one listing in the search results.

    "A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" — Leonard Nimoy

  • He's talking about WBB4. Canonical links for boards are built like this:

    Code
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.woltlab.com/forum/index.php/Board/2100-Burning-Board/?sortField=lastPostTime&amp;sortOrder=DESC" />
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.woltlab.com/forum/index.php/Board/2100-Burning-Board/?sortField=lastPostTime&amp;sortOrder=ASC" />

    ...

  • Hi @Netzwerg,

    This occurs in WBB 4 of course.

    The logical (and beautiful) link for boards page (without filters or sort fields) would be www.domain.com/forum/index.php/Board/1-forum-title/?pageNo=2 but the current default link is www.domain.com/forum/index.php/Board/1-forum-title/?pageNo=2&amp;sortField=lastPostTime&amp;sortOrder=DESC. This link is ugly, very long and incomprehensible for users ...

    In addition, if you change the sort fields the canonical URL also change. For example:

    Zitat

    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.woltlab.com/forum/index.php/Board/2100-Burning-Board/?pageNo=2&amp;sortField=lastPostTime&amp;sortOrder=DESC" />

    Zitat

    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.woltlab.com/forum/index.php/Board/2100-Burning-Board/?pageNo=2&amp;sortField=time&amp;sortOrder=ASC" />

    In my opinion the correct link would be  www.domain.com/forum/index.php/Board/1-forum-title/?pageNo=2 (the thread pages have similar URL) and other links with the same page number should take the noindex metatag (or other better method) for no generate duplicate content.

    Best regards.

    Edit: @SoftCreatR has been more faster than me. ;)

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