User friendly urls, good idea or bad idea?

Hello,

Some users ask me if it's possible to make some of the urls more user-friendly like the ones in Usercp.

Instead of domain.com/forum/profile.php?do=customize have domain.com/forum/profile/customize.

Are this a good idea or bad idea? What this can cause on SEO, on the server, on vbulletin, on vbseo, etc....?

Thank you in advance.

Not necessary, and will just add load to your server. It would be for decorative purposes only.

I only rewrite URLs that the search engines can see.

Originally Posted by Kanustep

Hello,

Some users ask me if it's possible to make some of the urls more user-friendly like the ones in Usercp.

Instead of domain.com/forum/profile.php?do=customize have domain.com/forum/profile/customize.

Are this a good idea or bad idea? What this can cause on SEO, on the server, on vbulletin, on vbseo, etc....?

Thank you in advance.

Do it like this (friendly) - recommend you strongly

Why you recommend strongly? Any good experience?

Personally i use them and my members love friendly urls for profile etc..

for the direct member page, like site.com/users/name/ YES, i use them.
for anything else, like edit/customize profile, NO WAY

Mert Gökçeimam, archie and briansol any particular reason for the pros and the cons?

We see alot of sites using user-friendly urls, in usuability is better for user to recognize the names and to remember it easly, and to make the navigation more easy. But what else?

Personal opinion it is pretty easy to use a forum with friendly urls. I donot need to browse through control panel just to click a link. I can easily write the link to my browser and go to that page.

I tried both with user friendly urls and not and it is obvious that my members loved the user friendly url format. I also tried to check it on perfonmance base and it is really hard to see any bad effect.

My work is mainly design, and in all our projects we use user-friendly links, users prefer that. However my concerns is in server load, does it take much on server Mert? Did you notice anything significant?

Can I also ask how to you configure yours?

These are the ones i use

Code:

// ozel mesajlar rewrite

'^private\.php$' => 'ozelmesaj/'
'^private\.php\?do=trackpm' => 'ozelmesaj/takip/'
'^private\.php\?do=editfolders' => 'ozelmesaj/klasor-duzenle/'
'^private\.php\?do=newpm' => 'ozelmesaj/yeni/'
'^private\.php\?do=showpm&pmid=(\d+)$' => 'ozelmesaj/mesaj-$1/'
'^private\.php\?folderid=(.+?)$' => 'ozelmesaj/$1/'


// profil kismi
'^profile\.php\?do=editsignature' => 'profil/imza/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editoptions' => 'profil/secenekler/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editprofilepic' => 'profil/profilresmi/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editprofile' => 'profil/duzenle/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editavatar' => 'profil/avatar/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editpassword' => 'profil/sifre/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editattachments' => 'profil/eklentiler/'
'^profile\.php\?do=ignorelistlist' => 'profil/shitlist/'
'^profile\.php\?do=customize' => 'profil/renkdegistirme/'
'^profile\.php\?do=buddylist' => 'profil/arkadaslistesi/'
'^profile\.php\?do=editusergroups' => 'profil/grup-uyelikleri/'

I never faced any increase on server load with them.

I like using our Custom Redirects feature also for shortcuts to stuff located on the forum.

hey mert, you got a typo...


'^profile\.php\?do=ignorelistlist' => 'profil/shitlist/'


listlist

also, you're missing the "to" option... for links that directly let you pm a member from profile, etc.

ie, i have:

'^private\.php\?do=newpm$' => 'pm/new/'
'^private\.php\?do=newpm&u=(\d+)' => 'pm/new/to-$1/'

Originally Posted by briansol

hey mert, you got a typo...


'^profile\.php\?do=ignorelistlist' => 'profil/shitlist/'


listlist

Thanks for reminding that

Thank you Mert, my concern was always the server load, I never had much problems with that except now that after a upgrade to php5 and mysql5 a client's site zombify some mysql queries and I'm on a VPS.

Do you have any concerns on loading vBulletin board or the site after changing the urls?