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Sunday, 18 February 2018 15:13

Create a Blog - Part 3 (URLs and Assets)

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Step 12 - Research of Live Blog Sites

Visit loads of online and large blogs and examine their URLS to see how everyone else does it and then consider which is the best format for your blog. URL research online, is a great way to work out what URL you want to use

Below is my research of various blog sites and how they setup their URLs and asset storage.

Step 13 - Blogging System URLs

I will list here the various CMS systems and their URLs. This will help to see what other people use and why.

Joomla

URLs are purely controlled by the following things. This allows a lot manual control but can be time consuming.

  • Menu item/Menu Alias
  • Category/Category Alias
  • Article Alias

K2

URLs are purely controlled by the following things (same as Joomla). This allows a lot manual control but can be time consuming.

  • Menu item/Menu Alias
  • Category/Category Alias
  • Article Alias

Easyblog

Below is the list of Easyblog URL options and I will go through each one.

  • Enable Unicode aliases - If enabled, EasyBlog will insert an id of your content as part of your permalink. E.g. 24-your-blog-title. This will support any Unicode characters such as Hebrew, Russian or Polish languages in your permalinks.
  • Enable language translations for URL - Enable or disable language translations on EasyBlog URLs. If you choose to enable this option, your language file for EasyBlog must be able to support this feature.
  • URL Format for your entry - see table below

Easyblog URL Pros and Cons

 URL setting Pros Cons
Default
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • Simple
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Date Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/year/month/date/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • This length of URL is suitable for complex blogs with lots of posting
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Category Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/category/title
  • NOT Resistant to category change
  • Category information in URL, may help SEO
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Category & Date Based
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/category/year/month/date/title
  • Category information in URL, may help SEO
  • NOT Resistant to category change
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Not resistant to article title change
Simple
http://yoursite.com/menu/title
  • Resistant to category change
  • No ‘entry’ in URL
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Custom
http://yoursite.com/menu/view/{%year_num%/%month_num%}/title

Available values for custom SEF:

  • %month% - Month Name
  • %day% - Day Name
  • %year_num% - Year digit
  • %month_num% - Month digit
  • %day_num% - Day digit
  • %category% - Category Title
  • %category_id% - Category ID
  • Example: %year_num%/%title%
  • Conditions can vary
  • Not all the URL variables are settable i.e. cant remove ‘menu’ and ‘view’ (see Easyblog notes)
  • Will have the word entry in the URL (where view is)
  • Conditions can vary

Overview Pros and Cons of Easyblog URLs

This will give an overview of the Easyblog URL setup because it has so many different internal options

 Pros Cons
 
  • Can set URLs independent of categories and articles
  • Can set a WordPress style URL (but with the word ‘entry’)
  • A custom URL option (but has the word entry in it)
  • Integration with Joomla URL router
  • Most of the URLs have the word ‘entry’ in them (this is where /view/ is)

WordPress

Now we will look at the WordPress URL options and list them here. WordPress calls SEF links Permalinks.

Primary URL Option

URL/Permalink Setting  Pros Cons
Plain
http://www.yoursite.com/?p=123
  • Resistant to category change
  • URL resistant if article title changes
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • No article title in the URL might hurt SEO
Day and name
http://www.yoursite.com/2018/02/18/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Month and name
http://www.yoursite.com/2018/02/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Numeric
http://www.yoursite.com/archives/123
  • Resistant to category change
  • URL resistant if article title changes
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • No article title in the URL might hurt SEO
Post name
http://www.yoursite.com/sample-post/
  •  Resistant to category change
  • No category information in URL, may harm SEO
  • Not resistant to article title change
Custom Structure
http://www.yoursite.com/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
  • Conditions can vary
  • Conditions can vary

Wordpress Optional URL Settings

If you like, you may enter custom structures for your category and tag URLs here. For example, using topics as your category base would make your category links like http://www.yoursite.com/topics/uncategorised/. If you leave these blank the defaults will be used.

  • Category Base
  • Tag Base

Conclusion

As you can see, WordPress allows very specific configuration of its URL structure. This is by far the most configurable URL system. Most people running blogs use only the primary URL option as it suits most needs.

All of the URLs above (before adding ‘Category Base’ and ‘Tag Base)

Pros Cons
  • Category change resistant
  • Simple
  • No category information in URL might affect SEO

Step 14 - Category and Article URLs

Planning your URLs is very important, it is how search engines access and index your website. You cannot change an established link without consequences but it can be done if needed. How often have you added a link to your bookmarks only to come back to it later to find the page is no longer there. I am trying to avoid this situation by having good planning.

Using the information from the research above I made the following notes and my Joomla Blog Software research

  • All articles should not have category routes on them? (SEOrountable.com uses this method). This allows you to move an article to another category without affecting its UR and therefore SEO ranking
  • All large dedicated blog sites use the root for their blog
  • News sites and non-dedicated blogging websites tend to put their blog in a sub-folder/menu such as ‘news’ or 'blog'
  • Seoroundtable, seobook and lifehacker all use the URL format - http://www.mydemosite.com/{article_title}
  • Best to only put your article in 1 category and use tags
  • it is the URL that is important and cannot be changed without hurting SEO, whereas not so important for the images and assets as these can be moved without hurting SEO (not much if any) and they primary location is decided by organisational considerations i.e. /2014/ , /2014/12/
  • You need to use SEF URLs at all times not those ugly ones with ?/= in them
  • Do not use .html at the end of your link. It is the old way of doing things.
  • If an article title or category have an ID in the URL this is ok because google understands them. These can also prevent duplicate URL/content because the item Id are always unique.

I recommend to use one of the following, no date or category in the url. However if you choose to use wordpress I would read the 'How many articles will you write?' section.

Step 15 - Image/Asset storage location for articles

We now have addressed what URLs to use for the articles and blog but the articles will most likely have images or assets that need to go somewhere. The rules to where you store your article assets are separate to the URL format however they could match depending on your setup.

Blogging systems with in-built asset handling:

  • Wordpress
    • Will store all assets in a folder based on date e.g. wp-content/uploads/2017/12/profile-cropped-300.jpg so there is no real manual intervention you can do or need to do. The date structure is based on what Permalink Common Settings you select in the Wordpress admin options. I have not verify the different possibilities but this is an educated guess from my live blog research above.
  • EasyBlog
    • By default Easyblog uses /images/Easyblog and possibly needs changing
    • Easyblog has team blogging and a user’s files will be stored in a folder such as /images/Easyblog/user_files/789/{assets here} . A user’s image folder is separate to everyone else’s images,  /images/Easyblog/user_files/789/ is their root folder.
    • When using Easyblog a particular users image files will be in a different root folder and will have the users ID added as a folder to its root, this being said you should follow the same rules you pick for the rest of the site but applied to individual users if you want all of their files separate.
    • You can use my rules below in EasyBlog but you should stick with the in-built system.

Blogging systems without in-built assets handling:

This is my attempt to create a generic system for storing your files and will reflect the frequency of new articles created in your blog and these rules really come into their own when the system you are using does not have an automatic system for handling assets. Using these rule will require you to manually place those assets according according to the rules unless you can configure the system you are using to follow these rules. These rules can be applied to systems that are not blogs.

The reason for these rules are:

  • Make writing articles easier to write because the author knows where to place the assets.
  • Single folders will not hold 1000s of assets. This can cause enumeration issues aswell as making it difficult to identify what assets belong to which article.
  • Make it easier to manage assets already on the server.

How many articles will you write?

Before making your selection you should figure out how many articles are likely to be created on your blog. You can use any of these levels for any amount of articles but there is no point in overcomplicating things so these guidelines below will help you determine what the level of folder structure that is required to keep your files organised and prevent a single folder becoming bloated.

  • 1 article every 5 days = 73 articles a year
  • Use /2014/{article_title}
  • 1 article every 3 days = 121.667 articles a year
  • This is on the limit of /2014/{article_title} you should use /2014/12/{article_title}
  • 1 article every 1 day = 365 articles a year
  • Use /2014/12/{article_title}
  • 1+ article every 1 day (or team blogging) = 365+ articles a year
  • Use /2014/12/31/{article_title}

Once you have picked a level, you need to stick with it for a year. Come the next year you can then choose upgrade/downgrade/same depending on the amount of articles you have done or have not done. Doing this keeps all your files in order and maintains the 'year' container so the rules are not swapped mid-stream causing issue about which rules to follow.

You now need to check over the information and select which option is best for you:

Asset Location
 Pros Cons Notes
images/blog/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • Will create one humungous folder with 100 – 1000s of images
  • Folder will only ever get bigger
  • No order to images
  • Hard to manage
  • Slow to index
 Don’t use this one.
       
images/blog/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • This seems a popular method.
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The single directory can get very full with a medium/large blog
  • Articles are not sorted in to categories
  • If you decide later to add things in to categories you would find it very difficult and would require a lot of intervention in the code (but not impossibly)
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • Number of article folders will only grow
  
images/blog/{category}/{article_title}/
  • Articles are in categories for easier management
  • If you choose a flat folder method you can easily remove the extra category part of the URL with a SQL script
  • Category in image URL good for SEO?
  • If you change an articles category the URL is not resistant
  • When a category is changed you would need to code edit
  • Possibly hurting SEO if category is changed
  • Cannot be used for articles in multiple categories
  
images/blog/{year}/{article_title}/
  • Each year you would get a new folder for storing articles keeping the number of articles in that folder from ever expanding for infinitum
  • Articles would be category changing resistant
  • Similar to the WordPress method of storing which seems to work well and is popular
  • You could further sub-folder the year to add the month in if there are too many articles
  • The year is a logical order not tied to categories or a filing system
  • Not over complex
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • Each year folder could have a very large number of articles in it
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {year} = 2013, 2014, 2015
Ideal format for small sites
       
images/blog/{year}/{month}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  
       
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used when an article is in multiple categories
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08
Ideal format for medium sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_title}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The {day} option adds 1 more layer of filtering.
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08/31
Ideal format for large sites
       
images/blog/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • This seems a popular method.
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • The single directory can get very full with a medium/large blog
  • Articles are not sorted in to categories
  • If you decide later to add things in to categories you would find it very difficult and would require a lot of intervention in the code (but not impossibly)
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • Number of article folders will only grow
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
  
images/blog/{category}/{article_id}/
  • Articles are in categories for easier management
  • If you choose a flat folder method you can easily remove the extra category part of the URL with a SQL script
  • Category in image URL good for SEO?
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • If you change an articles category the URL is not resistant
  • When a category is changed you would need to code edit
  • Possibly hurting SEO if category is changed
  • Cannot be used for articles in multiple categories
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
  
images/blog/{year}/{article_id}/
  • Each year you would get a new folder for storing articles keeping the number of articles in that folder from ever expanding for infinitum
  • Articles would be category changing resistant
  • Similar to the WordPress method of storing which seems to work well and is popular
  • You could further sub-folder the year to add the month in if there are too many articles
  • The year is a logical order not tied to categories or a filing system
  • Not over complex
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • Each year folder could have a very large number of articles in it
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {year} = 2013, 2014, 2015
Ideal format for small sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used when an article is in multiple categories
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08
Ideal format for medium sites
images/blog/{year}/{month}/{day}/{article_id}/
  • URL resistant if category changes
  • Can be used where an article is in multiple categories
  • The {day} option adds 1 more layer of filtering.
  • URL resistant if article name changes
  • No category in the URL might hurt SEO
  • No article name in the URL might hurt SEO
 {WordPress format} 2013/08/31
Ideal format for large sites

Table Notes

  • {article_title} is the SEF URL slug generated for the article.
  • {article_id} is the article ID of the article.
  • Because I am using the Joomla, the base folder for all user assets is /images/and therefore is the one I am using. If you do not use Joomla you might want to select a different base folder.
  • All assets for the blog should be within a /blog/ folder and then that folder should be within the base folder you choose e.g. /images/blog/.
  • All Joomla blog images should be in /images/blog/ as the blogs image root.
  • All of these assume the article title will not change.
  • Size of the site referers to new article creation frequency.

Read 1154 times Last modified on Wednesday, 21 February 2018 17:20
Published in Blogging
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