[ic] Rewriting URLs for SEO purposes - help!

[Cameron G]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: interchange-users-bounces at icdevgroup.org 
> [mailto:interchange-users-bounces at icdevgroup.org] On Behalf 
> Of Mike Heins
> Sent: Tuesday, 12 April 2005 11:35 AM
> To: interchange-users at icdevgroup.org
> Subject: Re: [ic] Rewriting URLs for SEO purposes - help!
> 
> Quoting Cameron G (ritontor at icenet.com.au):
> >  
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > Quoting Cameron G (ritontor at icenet.com.au):
> > > > Hi guys,
> > > > 
> > > > I'm certain I'm not the first person in the history of IC
> > > to want to
> > > > do this, and right now I'm pulling my hair out in
> > > frustration. Here's the deal.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > We've all seen /scan/ URLs in IC, right?
> > > > 
> > > 
> http://www.store.com/scan/st=db/co=yes/sf=prod_group/se=product_to_f
> > > in
> > > > d, or whatever it needs to be for your specific search. 
> > > Well, that URL
> > > > is all well and fine, and it works perfectly, but it's
> > > terrible for search engines.
> > > 
> > > Explain why this is terrible for search engines? As far 
> as I know, 
> > > they work fine for that purpose.
> > 
> > It's not that they don't work in search engines, google 
> will happily 
> > index them, they're just not optimized. One little SEO tip is that 
> > search engines love a keyword that has its own html page, 
> and keyword 
> > density helps too, meaning 
> > http://www.hammerstore.com/hammers/hammers.htm is going to 
> rank higher 
> > than 
> http://www.hammerstore.com/scan/st=db/co=yes/sf=prod_group/se=hammers.
> > 
> > http://www.hammerstore.com/hammers.htm is probably just 
> about ideal. 
> > Google seems to really like the (htm|html) extension.
> > 
> 
> Then you might consider using
> 
>    
> http://www.hammerstore.com/scan/st=db/co=yes/sf=prod_group/se=
> hammers.html
> 
> which will work fine.
> 
> That is not to say that you might not do (5.3 or higher, I think):
> 
> ## Map a subroutine to happen if the page is not there 
> SpecialSub  missing  ncheck_category
> 
> ## Subroutine that looks for a specially mapped page name ## 
> or searches for the string in the page name Sub 
> ncheck_category <<EOS sub {
>     my ($name) = @_;
>     return unless $name =~ m{^\w};
>     $name = lc $name;
>     my %map = (
> 	hammers => 'hammer_page',
> 	rulers => 'ruler_page',
>     );
> 
>     if($map{$name}) {
> 	return (1, $map{$name});
>     }
> 
>     $CGI->{mv_searchspec} = $name;
>     $CGI->{mv_todo} = 'search';
>     $Tag->update('process');
>     return (1, 'results');
> }
> EOS
> 
> You can get very, very sophisticated with what you do. I have 
> one site which automatically switches between static HTML 
> pages and dynamic ones based on whether they are found or 
> not, and does searches and case regularization tries if 
> neither side finds the page.
> 

That sounds pretty hot too, only downside to that is the server the
particular site I'm working on is running 4.9.6, and an upgrade is something
I'd have to spend a while testing first.