Crazy Istaria web addresses...

[Vahrokh]

Sorry to debunk some theories over here, but the forming of such long names (including the conjunctions, articles etc) is due to web composing tools just auto-naming URLs after pieces in the contents. Unless there's proof a SEO consultant has been hired, Ockam razor suggests laziness (at leaving default generated names) as the most probable cause.

[Chasing]

Sorry to debunk some theories over here, but the forming of such long names (including the conjunctions, articles etc) is due to web composing tools just auto-naming URLs after pieces in the contents. Unless there's proof a SEO consultant has been hired, Ockam razor suggests laziness (at leaving default generated names) as the most probable cause.

*chuckles*

An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Where have you been hiding Vahrokh?

[Akrion]

An ancestor of mine maintained that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Which could otherwise be known as proof by contradiction. x3

[Erich]

I didnt read all the replys but basic seo says to use descriptive file extentions. Many php based seo emulators automatically generate child url's like this. The important part is istaria.com all the rest is for web browsers

[Akrion]

I didnt read all the replys but basic seo says to use descriptive file extentions. Many php based seo emulators automatically generate child url's like this. The important part is istaria.com all the rest is for web browsers

Except I still can't find any definitive proof that says this absolutely works. No matter how much researching I do, I find just as many arguments against using long urls as there are for using long urls. So as far as I'm concerned long URL vs short URL is just another nVidia vs ATI type argument.

Funnily enough, when I google 'long url seo' the first result is a short URL that's against using long urls, and the second result is a long url that supports using them, both articles separated only by a few months in 2009. Not enough to really support anything for either side, but it's still amusing because it suggests that long urls aren't as immensely effective as people try to argue.

To me it comes down to wether or not the extra traffic, which I have yet to find being very significant over normal URLs, is worth the silly looking URLs that can break links in emails and what-not.

[Erich]

Except I still can't find any definitive proof that says this absolutely works. No matter how much researching I do, I find just as many arguments against using long urls as there are for using long urls. So as far as I'm concerned long URL vs short URL is just another nVidia vs ATI type argument.

Funnily enough, when I google 'long url seo' the first result is a short URL that's against using long urls, and the second result is a long url that supports using them, both articles separated only by a few months in 2009. Not enough to really support anything for either side, but it's still amusing because it suggests that long urls aren't as immensely effective as people try to argue.

To me it comes down to wether or not the extra traffic, which I have yet to find being very significant over normal URLs, is worth the silly looking URLs that can break links in emails and what-not.

There are no absolutes in seo. Google and other search engines are constantly changing their search algorithms and dont release the information to the general public. Forum posts on vbulletin srarch very well and use the same naming principals so i would say it works ptetty well.

[Erich]

I will say that my shopping cart using oscommerce got a major boost when i switched from product id urls to long descriptive url's. Almost twice the organic search engine traffic

[Chasing]

I will say that my shopping cart using oscommerce got a major boost when i switched from product id urls to long descriptive url's. Almost twice the organic search engine traffic

Yep the CD site got a jump in traffic when I did similar (after allowing time for reindexing).

The other part of that (although its becoming less important) is to rewrite dynamic URL's into manual URL's and 'hide' the database generated urls. It's built into most ecommerce packages as a standard these days though. [Before anyone points out to me, the CD site doesn't do that yet, still have ?pn= appearing].

[Akrion]

Yep the CD site got a jump in traffic when I did similar (after allowing time for reindexing)

CD's URLs actually have a relevence to the pages they reference at least.

Crimson-Dawn -> Manual -> Use the launcher to create a character sits under the url
of (I'm sure you know this) which is directly relevent to where you're navigating.

In the case of Istaria.com Istaria -> FAQ -> World/History sits under the url of http://www.istaria.com/How_big_is_th...instanced.html
a 'persistent and non instanced' game world isn't even covered.

[Chasing]

Persistent and Non-Instanced are keywords

Edit: It will pickup on 'instanced' as well.

[Kesqui]

Persistent and Non-Instanced are keywords

Edit: It will pickup on 'instanced' as well.

However, the word "instanced" doesn't appear on the page at all - the page itself is about world size/structure building, and the URL would ideally reflect what the page is about.

[Chasing]

However, the word "instanced" doesn't appear on the page at all - the page itself is about world size/structure building, and the URL would ideally reflect what the page is about.

Variants, organic related, and inverted keywords do (in this case the inverted keyword is actually in the URL).

[neva]

Fastest way to derail a thread ever!

Also Hi!

*goes back to lurker land*

[Erich]

Fastest way to derail a thread ever!

Also Hi!

*goes back to lurker land*

Seems ontopic to me

[Kesqui]

Variants, organic related, and inverted keywords do (in this case the inverted keyword is actually in the URL).

Ok, ok, I'll clarify:

I was taught that using keywords that do not appear in the *text* of the page is bad - it's bad SEO and it's black-hat tactics.

It wouldn't take much to update the text content of the page to include the phrase:

"Istaria's world is non-instanced and permanent" - and ideally, for people who have never played another MMORPG (like me!), explain what that actually means.

And, of course, regularly updating the text content of the pages is good practice.

[Chasing]

Ok, ok, I'll clarify:

I was taught that using keywords that do not appear in the *text* of the page is bad - it's bad SEO and it's black-hat tactics.

????????

Not sure where you are getting that from Kes, they are related keywords

[Kesqui]

As I said, although I work in web design, SEO is not my strongest point (I go more for the usability / accessibility side of content management).

However, I was taught that keywords (whether that's metas or otherwise) come from content, and that your content should always have the keywords you want to highlight in it. So, if that page linked above is intended to be pulling in hits based on searches for "non-instanced" then the words "non-instanced" should also appear in the body text of the page, not just in the URL.

[Chasing]

Google is a bit smarter than that these days, I've pulled out some recent blogs/articles about keywords.

http://seoblogmoney.com/seo-keywords...-your-content/

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-t...eo-conversions

http://www.link-assistant.com/blog/g...h-to-synonyms/

http://www.4psmarketing.com/blog/key...onyms-for-seo/

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/think-the-...lated-keywords

[Amerelium]

This is the Lunatic way...

Some pages branching off istaria.com:

Istaria_MMORPG_is_a_Free_to_Play_PvE_fantasy_onlin e_role_playing_sandbox_game.html
Tell_me_about_the_massively_multiplayer_online_rol e_playing_game_Istaria.html

This is absolutely insane.

What_avatars_toons_or_characters_are_playable_in_I staria_are_there_Dragons.html

This one is even two sentences!

Why are all the links like this? They're not meant to be descriptions, they're file names. xD (For example, good html file name practices would be using all lower case and keeping the names relatively short, under 30 to 50 characters if you can.)

Just my two cents, anyway. The website will have a fair number of people shaking their heads if left this way, though.