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

[Jaagup Irve]

This kind of interferes with "good URLs won't change" logic. I'm not
suggesting that the idea hasn't crossed my mind but we ought to
consider whether we like google pagerank or consistent addresses.
Since it's very easy to change versions now I'd even go for URL
consistency.

J.

On 3 November 2011 11:51, Brecht Van Lommel <brechtvanlommel at pandora.be> wrote:
> 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 That was my point: While the old outdated pages may bootstrap the SEO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
>>
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>>
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