working. Now, the question is if I enable flat URLs sitewide in order to allow the autopay page, how does that effect the commercial_security.aspx page as it applies to Google links?
When you enable extensionless urls the old .aspx urls still work, but your xslt will probably use the new values so any "link juice" passed to the old links may be lost, unless you 301 redirect the old links.
If it's only one link, why not just create an "autopay" directory with an index.asp with a 301 redirect to your correct page?
<% Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" Response.AddHeader "Location", "/new-page.asp" %>
I like the idea of the directory, however I need a long term solution that doesn't require server access. As for "link juice", what would be an example to look out for? Furthermore, what/where is the switch to enable site-wide flat URLs?
The danger with having a pre-existing site that is switched over is that the content is accessible via two urls, so you might want to set up a rewrite rule (don't ask me how, I don't know!) to map all .aspx urls to the extensionless variety so that google etc knows where the content is located. Submitting a sitemap via google webmaster tools with the new urls should help.
Once you update your files with this, enable your extensionless url's. Search engines will think they never discovered the 'real' extensionless url, but now you added the canonical tag, they discover them.
Result: old juice transfered to new pages, and both extensionless and the regular page will accumulate juice for the same page from then on.
There isn't much/any solid data on the effects of using the canonical tag, and the official word from Google says that you should only use it on the non-canonical pages, which makes it a bit confusing as with this problem they are the same page.
So, you're saying that if I enable flat URLs as stated in aforementioned link, browsers will actually be able to hit pages with _both_ flat and .aspx appended URLs? I'm fine w/ that. I have a sitemap template configured for the site as it is. The sitemap XSLT uses:
umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)
So i would imagine that all juice is squeezed from within the Umbraco framework. Is that correct?
Bert --
I'm still not getting the juice thing. Can you give an example?
The thing is that as far as search engines are concerned, yoursite.com/page.aspx and yoursite.com/page as two different pages. To be honest though I'd just go for it. It's a nice addition to a site; the site will be reindexed and all will work itself out in time!
Strip aspx and Create Flat URL for One Page Only
I do not want to strip off .aspx for all pages because I'm worried about how that will effect Google links. I want to have:
http://www.supremealarm.com/autopay
but leave
http://www.supremealarm.com/commercial_security.aspx
working. Now, the question is if I enable flat URLs sitewide in order to allow the autopay page, how does that effect the commercial_security.aspx page as it applies to Google links?
When you enable extensionless urls the old .aspx urls still work, but your xslt will probably use the new values so any "link juice" passed to the old links may be lost, unless you 301 redirect the old links.
If it's only one link, why not just create an "autopay" directory with an index.asp with a 301 redirect to your correct page?
Dan
Dan,
I like the idea of the directory, however I need a long term solution that doesn't require server access. As for "link juice", what would be an example to look out for? Furthermore, what/where is the switch to enable site-wide flat URLs?
To enable the urls requires a small IIS tweak, as well as the umbracoUseDirectoryUrl setting in the web.config. See http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/setting-up-umbraco-for-friendly-urls for more details.
The danger with having a pre-existing site that is switched over is that the content is accessible via two urls, so you might want to set up a rewrite rule (don't ask me how, I don't know!) to map all .aspx urls to the extensionless variety so that google etc knows where the content is located. Submitting a sitemap via google webmaster tools with the new urls should help.
In your template use the canonical tag
<link href="your url" rel="canonical"/>Once you update your files with this, enable your extensionless url's. Search engines will think they never discovered the 'real' extensionless url, but now you added the canonical tag, they discover them.
Result: old juice transfered to new pages, and both extensionless and the regular page will accumulate juice for the same page from then on.
There isn't much/any solid data on the effects of using the canonical tag, and the official word from Google says that you should only use it on the non-canonical pages, which makes it a bit confusing as with this problem they are the same page.
Dan --
So, you're saying that if I enable flat URLs as stated in aforementioned link, browsers will actually be able to hit pages with _both_ flat and .aspx appended URLs? I'm fine w/ that. I have a sitemap template configured for the site as it is. The sitemap XSLT uses:
umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)
So i would imagine that all juice is squeezed from within the Umbraco framework. Is that correct?
Bert --
I'm still not getting the juice thing. Can you give an example?
"Link juice" is just a way of describing the value that links pass to pages with regards to search engines. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagerank-link-patterns-the-new-flow-of-link-juice should contain a few pointers (I'd also recommend seomoz as a great seo resource)
The thing is that as far as search engines are concerned, yoursite.com/page.aspx and yoursite.com/page as two different pages. To be honest though I'd just go for it. It's a nice addition to a site; the site will be reindexed and all will work itself out in time!
Thanks (cheers)!
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