Has anybody out there implemented a blog within Umbraco that uses tag names in the URL (domain/tag/post) instead of the date (domain/year/month/day/post)? I have installed the Blog4Umbraco package but it uses the date URL's, and my client is insisting (for SEO purposes) that the URL's should only contain the tag title followed by the blog post title. This site shows an example of the blog format that I am after:
The blog that you link to isn't using tags in the URL, it's using categories. Using tags in the URL would lead to an article that has multiple tags being available from multiple URLs, which can of course be detrimental to your SEO efforts. For your SEO purposes, an article can have mutliple tags but should only belong in one category.
Doing this in umbraco is fairly simple, but your URL structure must match the node structure in the backend.
To do this you would be best throwing away the DateFolder part of Blog4Umbraco, and building up your own structure with blog posts held inside category document types. The category document types would have a template that allows the listing of all posts under that category, whilst the main blog listing page would simply grab all blog posts stored under it, no matter what category they are stored in.
Then you could still use the tags package in combination with categorisation in the same was as the wordpress blog you link to above works, with each tag link bringing the user back to the main blog page but with the list filtered by tag.
Your blog posts would then be of the form
yourdomain.com/blog/category/url-of-the-post
and you could still use tags with links to
yourdomain.com/blog?tag=TAGNAME
Your client should also probably be made aware of the dangers of putting too much emphasis on URL structure when it comes to SEO, but that's for a different day. Everyone's an SEO expert these days!
Have a look at my AutoFolders package (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/autofolders). It will show you how to have different folder structures to displayed urls.
However, you could also edit the blog4umbraco package and removed the NewDocument event handler. It's this that enforces the data based folder structure.
jonok - The NewDocument event handler is bundled up in the dll. You could remove but that will disable any other functionality provided via code. I was more thinking about taking the Blog4Umbraco code, rebuilding it with the removal of the event handler.
Blog that uses tags titles in the URL?
Has anybody out there implemented a blog within Umbraco that uses tag names in the URL (domain/tag/post) instead of the date (domain/year/month/day/post)? I have installed the Blog4Umbraco package but it uses the date URL's, and my client is insisting (for SEO purposes) that the URL's should only contain the tag title followed by the blog post title. This site shows an example of the blog format that I am after:
http://www.seoconsult.co.uk/SEOBlog/about-seo/going-for-gold-the-fight-for-first-place-with-seo.html
Has anybody modified Blog4Umbraco, or is there a setting that I can change in the package?
Thanks.
The blog that you link to isn't using tags in the URL, it's using categories. Using tags in the URL would lead to an article that has multiple tags being available from multiple URLs, which can of course be detrimental to your SEO efforts. For your SEO purposes, an article can have mutliple tags but should only belong in one category.
Doing this in umbraco is fairly simple, but your URL structure must match the node structure in the backend.
To do this you would be best throwing away the DateFolder part of Blog4Umbraco, and building up your own structure with blog posts held inside category document types. The category document types would have a template that allows the listing of all posts under that category, whilst the main blog listing page would simply grab all blog posts stored under it, no matter what category they are stored in.
Then you could still use the tags package in combination with categorisation in the same was as the wordpress blog you link to above works, with each tag link bringing the user back to the main blog page but with the list filtered by tag.
Your blog posts would then be of the form
and you could still use tags with links to
Your client should also probably be made aware of the dangers of putting too much emphasis on URL structure when it comes to SEO, but that's for a different day. Everyone's an SEO expert these days!
Dan
Hi,
Have a look at my AutoFolders package (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/autofolders). It will show you how to have different folder structures to displayed urls.
However, you could also edit the blog4umbraco package and removed the NewDocument event handler. It's this that enforces the data based folder structure.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris that looks like it could be I need - I'll give it a go. Thanks!
Dan, your suggestion sounds good - I'm going to try to extend the blog4umbraco document types with categories.
Chris, how would I go about removing the NewDocument event handler in the Blog4Umbraco package?
jonok - The NewDocument event handler is bundled up in the dll. You could remove but that will disable any other functionality provided via code. I was more thinking about taking the Blog4Umbraco code, rebuilding it with the removal of the event handler.
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