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| Project: | Documentation |
| Component: | Docs infrastructure |
| Category: | feature request |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | Unassigned |
| Status: | active |
| Issue tags: | docs infrastructure, valid issue |
Issue Summary
Problem
When using a search engine such as Google, it is often impossible to differentiate drupal.org documentation based on the Drupal version it pertains to. Sometimes multiple versions are handled with one page, but sometimes not. For example, the Internationalization module documentation is separated out into Drupal 5, Drupal 6, and Drupal 7 doc bundles. For example,
Drupal 7: Translating user defined strings
Drupal 6: Translating user defined strings
This is bad for users, but it's also bad for SEO as both of these pages have the exact same page title.
Proposed solution
It would be useful to have the Drupal versions in the page title. So, for the examples above, they would be:
Drupal 7: Translating user defined strings (Drupal 7)
Drupal 6: Translating user defined strings (Drupal 6)
If there are multiple versions handled, then they all can be included, e.g. something like:
Drupal 5-7: Translating user defined strings (Drupal 5/6/7)
If the page hasn't been tagged with any Drupal versions, then it would not include this part of the page title. If there are pages that shouldn't use this convention for some reason, then perhaps there could be a checkbox when editing the page that says something like:
[ ] Do not include Drupal version for the page title
Implementation
Assuming that the page title module is being used, then this can be handled with a custom token. The token would 1) decide if the Drupal version should be included, and, if so, 2) create the string to use. Then the page title patterns can be updated with the new token.
For example, if the current page title pattern is:
[current-page:page-title] | [site:name]
and the token is called "drupal-version", then the pattern can be updated like:
[current-page:page-title] [drupal-version] | [site:name]
Comments
#1
#2
I don't think the Page Title module is being used on drupal.org, sorry. The infrastructure people are very reluctant to add new modules, since each new module slows down page loads. Also, many of the pages on drupal.org documentation have not been marked up with the Drupal version taxonomy, so I'm not sure this would even help.
But it is a valid concern, and I appreciate that you took the time to report it. Going forward, we should also consider this as a design consideration for new Drupal documentation projects.
#3
Tagging so it doesn't get picked up by #1421874: [meta] Documentation Issue Queue Cleanup
#4
It's still valid even if the Page title module isn't used as it's easy enough to change the tag in the theme to whatever you want. Also, even though some pages aren't marked with versions, I think it would still be useful for those that are (there are quite a few pages I've come across that have versions set).
Hope one of the powers that be will decide this is worth doing as the amount of time it would take to implement is *very* small yet I think the impact is fairly big.
Kristen
#5
We also have Drupal Version as a taxo for the docs pages too, and it shows in the sidebar, so I'd rather harness that as a filter or something rather than add it to the page titles.
#6
@arianek - That is the Drupal Version I'm talking about. It would be good as a drupal.org search filter and in the page title (
<title>) for the standard search engines. Pages will rank more correctly in search engine results and users will be able to see which results are more relevant to their situation.Kristen
#7
The Drupal version taxonomy is actually multiple-valued -- one page can (and often does) apply to multiple Drupal versions. Because of this, I don't think it's really practical to put it automatically into page titles.
I think we should adopt suggested page title standards that say to put the Drupal version into the title if the page applies only to one version, especially if there is (as in the example in this issue summary) a nearlty identical page for other versions in the Documentation too.
I also think it would be useful to show the drupal version as a line in the Drupal.org search results, and that should actually be pretty easy to do in the theming of search results (although since searches can result in not only Book pages but also Modules, Themes, Issues, etc., the taxonomy Drupal Version wouldn't apply to all search results, so we'd have to be careful). This wouldn't help of course with Google search results, but of course if people made better titles for their pages in general that would help with Google search results.
#8
I understand the SEO motivation, but I don't believe that's worth cluttering up the titles for... *unless* there was a way to only display the major version number in the title in some standard way on the page display, but exclude it from showing in the D.o sidebar menu for example.
Adding the version as a search filter on D.o would, I think, be fantastic though, and actually worth prioritizing, whereas the title/version issue seems of much lower priority than a lot of the other infra work that is on the table.
#9
IMHO, I don't think the proposal above is cluttered, e.g.
Translating user defined strings (Drupal 7)
Translating user defined strings (Drupal 6)
Translating user defined strings (Drupal 5/6/7)
This seems clean to me. The alternative mentioned above would be to have the documentation authors to include this when it makes sense. This would be fine if everyone did it consistently. My guess is that will never happen and, when some authors do use it, then it will end up being used in different ways, e.g.
Drupal 7: Translating user defined strings
Translating user defined strings (Drupal 6)
Translating user defined strings for Drupal 5/6/7
which isn't so user-friendly.
Kristen
#10
Yes, we'd definitely have to have it be optional, as some pages are really version agnostic.
But as far as clutter, I've added version numbers to many docs pages and when it comes to the sidebar menu it really does clutter it up and usually add an extra line to every node title in the menu, which makes the menu a lot harder to read through.
I'm not sure what would be a good way around that other than not displaying version in the menu (which somewhat defeats the usefulness if people can't skim through and ID a version). But then they could use the search if we had a filter, though it's not as easy to navigate around that way.
#11
I don't think it should be in the node titles (and thus the menu titles) due to the cluttering issue you mention. I'm not sure if I was clear before, but it can be added to the page title without being added to the node title / menu title.
I definitely think it would be good to add a "Drupal version" to the "refine your search" (advanced search).
Kristen