[RFC] Human Readable URLs

[Louis7777]

I've personally grown to like the viewtopic.php URLs and prefer them over any "human readable" ones. I'd only want the latter for static pages.

Currently the phpBB topic URLs look similar to YouTube's (and they are kind of "human readable"). For example:

A YouTube URL like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ means "watch the video that has the id dQw4w9WgXcQ".

A phpBB URL like this one https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=40965 means "view the topic that has the id/number 40965".

I only wish that we'll eventually remove the f variable from the URL. Not only for aesthetic reasons, but also because it introduces a small bug known as "ghost users bug".

The canonical URLs don't have the f variable which means that there are users who are viewing the topics in their canonical form (without the f=) such as those who found them on Google. Those users are not displayed in the who is online list of the specific forum.

I'd rather see that little bug being fixed and the f variable removed than have new "human readable" URLs.

[DavidIQ]

Do we have a ticket for that?

[Louis7777]

Do we have a ticket for that?

Which one? The "ghost user" bug? Nope.

[DavidIQ]

Which one? The "ghost user" bug? Nope.

Can you create one then? Otherwise it'll never get fixed.

Although off topic what are the ramifications of this f parameter suddenly vanishing from all topic URLs? Wouldn't this have a negative effect on SEO?

[Louis7777]

Ticket: https://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3-14623

Although off topic what are the ramifications of this f parameter suddenly vanishing from all topic URLs? Wouldn't this have a negative effect on SEO?

We are already using canonical URLs without it which means that - as far as SEO is concerned - it's already good as gone.

[juliokr]

I've personally grown to like the viewtopic.php URLs and prefer them over any "human readable" ones. I'd only want the latter for static pages.

Currently the phpBB topic URLs look similar to YouTube's (and they are kind of "human readable"). For example:

A YouTube URL like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ means "watch the video that has the id dQw4w9WgXcQ".

A phpBB URL like this one https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=40965 means "view the topic that has the id/number 40965".

YouTube videos don't have any text because this are videos which you can name however you want. So human readable urls would make less sense !
And "view topic" means nothing so you could better make urls like https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/vt.php?t=40965 this would have the advantage to shorten urls

[Ger]

YouTube videos don't have any text because this are videos which you can name however you want. So human readable urls would make less sense !

What is the difference between the title of a video and the title of a forum/topic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazy-cat-sleeps-for-ten-years-must-see-this-adorable-video-covering-its-entire-life would be an excellent url for Youtube, wouldn't it?

And "view topic" means nothing so you could better make urls like https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/vt.php?t=40965 this would have the advantage to shorten urls

What makes you think that shorter urls are better?

[juliokr]

YouTube videos don't have any text because this are videos which you can name however you want. So human readable urls would make less sense !

What is the difference between the title of a video and the title of a forum/topic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazy-cat-sleeps-for-ten-years-must-see-this-adorable-video-covering-its-entire-life would be an excellent url for Youtube, wouldn't it?

And "view topic" means nothing so you could better make urls like https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/vt.php?t=40965 this would have the advantage to shorten urls

What makes you think that shorter urls are better?

Mostly if you put a link of a youtube video in another page you can see a "preview" of the video (even in Google result pages) so mostly you don't care at all about the url !
The "preview" of "text pages" (in Google result pages) is the title, the meta description and the url

2. It seems that search engines prefer shorter urls to longer urls (but this is like with seo urls, some "seo specialists" are convinced others not)

[DavidIQ]

2. It seems that search engines prefer shorter urls to longer urls (but this is like with seo urls, some "seo specialists" are convinced others not)

You do realize that this is the exact opposite of what you've been so strongly arguing about in this topic right? Human readable URLs are not short at all and are in fact more than double in length in some cases compared to what we have now.

[juliokr]

2. It seems that search engines prefer shorter urls to longer urls (but this is like with seo urls, some "seo specialists" are convinced others not)

You do realize that this is the exact opposite of what you've been so strongly arguing about in this topic right? Human readable URLs are not short at all and are in fact more than double in length in some cases compared to what we have now.

This just a paradox of "search engine rules" !
f.ex. : more content is better than less content, but less page weight is better than more page weight ... and there are other examples.

but for "viewtopic.php" compared to "vt.php" I can not find any adventage