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Thread: Publishing flat

  1. #1

    Default Publishing flat

    Can anyone tell me if publishing flat changes a site in any way or does it simply reorganize content? Will I need to prepare the site before publishing or afterwards? Do internal links change?

    I want to drop the first /html in this page.
    http://www.rockfordtoolcraft.com/htm..._stamping.html

  2. #2
    Senior Member LBA's Avatar
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    For the most part, the answer is... no, you don't have to change a thing. Just publish flat and the url's will be cleaner. The exception would be if you had previously published with some other method AND if you had for some reason inserted HTML with the file paths based on the previous method, in which case you would simply correct the file paths in your inserted scripts and all would be good. You should also be aware that if the site was previously published non-flat, search engines will still have the old url's in their database and so they may need a little time to get themselves updated... and if there are other websites that link to internal pages on your site, they'll perhaps need to be informed about the changes, too. If you need to, you can set up some htaccess code that will automatically redirect any of the changed page addresses.

    Laurence

  3. #3

    Default

    Thank you for the explanation. It sounds like it would reverse or at least stall my SEO efforts. I will hold off for now.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Andy Hoyt's Avatar
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    SEO is indeed the big issue here. At least it was for me a while back when I took over a site that needed a huge overhaul and was published in site structure format.

    Client and I both wanted to go with a flat yet we had to consider the fact that he was getting some decent rankings in searches.

    We countered it by publishing a carefully written 404 page and created new (non-navigable) pages using the old page names with 301 redirects.

    We couldn't use the old page names in the revamped site because his product line had evolved a great deal and those old names didn't adequately reflect this.

    It worked just peachy.
    Last edited by Andy Hoyt; 12-09-2010 at 04:44 PM.
    Only the Blue Roads

  5. #5
    Senior Member franko's Avatar
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    Just wondering why you'd want to publish flat. Can't see any advantage at all and once your site grows to a certain size you'll spend ages searching for a particular file.

  6. #6
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    I know I might start a flood here, but my understanding is that the sites directory structure is quite irrelevant in SEO (and others) and once set that way, truly not worth changing.

    One good SEO rule is truly relevant page names and always use "-" (dash) for the space, don't use "_" (underscore) or no space in the page name, but the fact that page name is is a folder called /html is irrelevant.

    There are over 200 metrics Google use to determine ranking and as always, content is king.

    There is of course a lot of conflicting information on the web about this, and very old thinking on the subject. At the end of the day Google and all others constantly try to give relevant results to searchers. If a relevant page happens to sit in a directory called /html it is still relevant to the searcher. Trust that this principle is true.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Andy Hoyt's Avatar
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    We switched because we got a plethora of complaints about getting 404s after the initial republish (which was by structure); and the extra /html/ in the url was confusing users when they tried editing the url manually to find the page they wanted. We decided to make life easier for the folks that use the site to buy the customer's product, and indirectly pay our wages.

    And yes, that extra /html/ in the url will haunt users who click old links, so a plan to accommodate them ought to be in place because search engines will list them and users will bookmark and share them.
    Only the Blue Roads

  8. #8
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    I think you have taken offence and are being a little sarcastic back when saying:
    We decided to make life easier for the folks that use the site to buy the customer's product, and indirectly pay our wages.
    When doing large overhauls to a site (as you obviously did), so much needs to change, then it doesn't matter which way you choose to go, and therefore my point still stands. I wasn't saying what you did in your case was incorrect. You are correct about making your customers life easier and you are in a great position to do that with a major overhaul.

    I'm not saying /html is the thing to do, simply that /html is not bad for SEO as some people seem to be saying in this and other posts.

    Therefore, if you are not doing a major overhaul (the OP seems not to be doing as you did), and simply doing it because you think it helps SEO, you would be incorrect and you are better letting sleeping dogs lie, and even more so if you have good rankings already.

  9. #9
    k larssen
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    Default Re: Publishing flat

    Personally I like to publish everything flat so that if I have to tell
    someone a URL I don't have to add "html" in the middle of it.

    I also don't like to have to change directories to get to my files.

    "Technology Ideas" <Technology.Ideas.4lqqxc@no-mx.forums.netobjects.com>
    wrote in message news:Technology.Ideas.4lqqxc@no-mx.forums.netobjects.com...
    >
    > I think you have taken offence and are being a little sarcastic back
    > when saying:
    >> We decided to make life easier for the folks that use the site to buy
    >> the customer's product, and indirectly pay our wages.

    >
    > When doing large overhauls to a site (as you obviously did), so much
    > needs to change, then it doesn't matter which way you choose to go, and
    > therefore my point still stands. I wasn't saying what you did in your
    > case was incorrect. You are correct about making your customers life
    > easier and you are in a great position to do that with a major overhaul.
    >
    > I'm not saying /html is the thing to do, simply that /html is not bad
    > for SEO as some people seem to be saying in this and other posts.
    >
    > Therefore, if you are -not- doing a major overhaul (the OP seems not to
    > be doing as you did), and simply doing it because you think it helps
    > SEO, you would be incorrect and you are better letting sleeping dogs
    > lie, and even more so if you have good rankings already.
    >
    >
    >
    > Regards,
    > Andrew Baker | http://www.technologyideas.com.au
    > Australia




  10. #10
    Senior Member franko's Avatar
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    Default

    Of course, if you're on an Apache server you can use mod_rewrite to lose the /html/.

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