I’m integrating an export feature in Blocs 3.1 (beta next week) that will allow cleaner page URLs.
So instead of mysite/hello.html You can have mysite/hello
There are various ways to do it from what I’ve read (via htaccess or simply removing the file extension), Im looking for a tried and tested solution, as this is new ground for me.
Anyone got any advice or ideas on this?
UPDATE
The most consistent results I’ve had are to update the HTML href data attributes so they point to extension-less file urls and then to apply a RewriteCon on the htaccess file on the server.
UPDATE 2
I’ve found an even more robust way, thanks @Flashman
Yes you would need a new sitemap, but I would see no reason why this would hurt your search ranking.
What you might need to do though is set up 301 redirects if you have incoming links to specific pages, so example.com/hello.html goes example.com/hello/. Anything going to your home page will remain unchanged, unless you have switched from html to php or vice versa.
Blocs will generate a new site map on export to take this new URL structure into consideration. The feature is option during export so don’t worry you wont be forced to change your sites links
It will be switched off by default on new projects too.
I have long suspected that clean url structures actually help your ranking and even conversion rates, because people are more inclined to click on a link in the search results if it looks clean and particularly so if it is linked to a great domain name.
Google sees how often people click on links relative to their position and this has an impact on your ranking. There are some good pointers here regarding url structure and best practices for SEO.
An afterthought, but an option to add categories in the url structure would be useful on larger sites. As suggested in that link above on url structures for SEO purposes:
HTACCESS is the correct method IMHO. It does restrict you to a Apache servers (NGINX does not support htaccess) It’s really not a big deal I think but wanted to bring it up nonetheless. There is a conversion script but I’ve never tried it.
I think the link scheme should follow the menu structure, keeping things semantic.
I think your core audience will appreciate this. Clean urls are an SEO best practice. All other metrix being equal, Google will reward the clean URL.
I have experimented with htaccess for this many times and run into all sorts of conflicts, such as when a redirect to https is already in place.
When you think of all the Blocs users out there with countless httacess arrangements and server setups that would be asking for trouble. In the past I’ve had Nginx as a reverse proxy and currently have Litespeed, then you have to remember those using Cloudflare with different configurations in place.
I agree on the link structure, though perhaps this could be a user option, since somebody may not want urls like example.com/services/painting/ if they had a marketing campaign where you really want a short snappy web address that is memorable, especially if seen offline. Arguably you should set up a specific landing page in that instance.
Clean urls are something I have wanted to see for a long time, because clients love them and trying to convince them otherwise is a losing battle. I do believe they deliver better results as well, even if indirectly.
Still thinking about SEO I’d like to see a bric or some other means that makes it easier to implement structured data, twitter cards and Facebook OpenGraph.
Using htaccess file for striping html is ok but you need manual to remove all extensions from links. We did that before on our page. But this new striping with blocs is super for us. The only thing that i have problem with is creating a separate folder for each of the links/pages.
@norm I think you are on the right path with this. Leaving the names of created pages instead of creating folder is better. I know that the links are staying the same. Because of the SEO. But from architecture side i would love to have them in one place. Sitemap stays the same as before. That’s ok. There is nowhere index file showed.
PS. Why am saying this with separate folder. What’s happening with links for example on news or event page. Where you have a lot of lindex with html extension at the end of their links. Did the new way create a separate folder to for those links??
We are still in process of rebuilding the site with new blocs. So i can just guess that will happen
Thanks
Update: So answer to my self it doesn’t create a folder for external links. But i can see that when you are exporting the page again in the same folder it creates a new set of folders for links adding -1 at the end? Why. It should replace/overwrite the folders names!?
