[Bf-docboard] Redirecting old 2.3 docs: help needed!

[Brecht Van Lommel]

Hi,

I think perhaps the current use of namespaces contributes to the problem?

Right now the 2.4 manual is in Doc:Manual, 2.5 in Doc:2.5/Manual and
2.6 in Doc:2.6/Manual. This way the latest version always keeps
changing URL, and it needs to start again rising in the rankings. More
logical to me would be that we'd now have Doc:2.4/Manual,
Doc:2.5/Manual, and Doc:Manual for 2.6.

Brecht.

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 7:27 AM, Raindrops From Sky
<raindrops.fromsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Luca,
>
> Thanks for sharing the thoughts.
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 8:30 AM, mindrones <mindrones at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 11/02/2011 11:54 PM, Raindrops From Sky wrote:
>> > Why not simply retire the old pages, rather than this exercise?
>>
>> Because it would be a waste. We know the link between the pages, not
>> informing search engines about it has no sense to me.
>>
>> The problem is not only removing the old ones, because in some cases we
>> also have to climb 4 google pages to be found. Best using everything we
>> have at hand IMHO :)
>
> That was my point: While the old outdated pages may bootstrap the SEO
> ranking of the new pages, the website becomes bloated (just look at the
> sheer number of non-usable pages, from 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 versions). The
> traffic is split, which hampers the SEO rating of the 2.6 pages. Pruning the
> site will accelerate the SEO rating of the 2.6 pages.
>
> First of all, the question is, does the Blender wiki have to rely on SEO at
> all? The wiki pages are meant for people who already know of Blender. These
> people will be looking for specific terms such as "Blender wiki" or "Blender
> docs" or "blender help" or "blender manual"; and will surely not miss the
> wiki (once the description meta tags are configured).
>
> On the other hand, people looking for other generic terms such as "3d
> modeler", or functions such as "compositor", "video editor" may have
> difficulty in finding the wiki. To draw such people to Blender wiki, we will
> need some more SEO tricks. But whatever we do should be limited to the
> pruned pages only.
>
>> Simply copy the previous content to the latest branch page and add a
>> HatNote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hatnote) that this
>> content is based on old version x.xx; and may be outdated.
>
>> The current wiki started as a transcript of those pages already. After
>> so many years (5/6) it has not much sense to do that :)
>
> True: There is hardly anything relevant; because of (a) new features and (b)
> drastic change in GUI in 2.5.
>
> In any case once your "auto-generate reference wiki page from GUI code"
> starts working, the reliance on old pages will decrease even further.
>
> Note that this actually speaks in favor of retiring the old version pages!
> :)
>
> *******
> Perhaps it is best to get rid of the 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 pages; and focus on
> SEO on the 2.6 pages.
> If you are forming an SEO team,  I am interested in joining it (to find
> optimized keywords for each page).
>
> Regards,
> Narayan
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-docboard mailing list
> Bf-docboard at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard
>
>