By domineaux on

Maybe I've missed something, but I cannot find a way to apply the alias paths to the site pages.

I have a complete page of alias links and they look correct. I still get the node paths on the address line when I click a link on the menu.

The source file review indicates the nodes are still being used.

I have applied the path and Pathauto modules.

The content page indicates the path is created automatically, which is fine, because when I click on it I go where I'm supposed to go.

I'm very close to putting the site up for indexing, but I think this has to be resolved first.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

Well, I've been reading everything I can find.

It appears that the PathAuto just creates and alias and doesn't change the node/1/1/ thingy.

I want to change the links as they are used within the website to text ids.

To help my SEO I want to be able to create my own links using search friendly keywords in the links.

How do I change the node/1/2/ type links to text friendly URLs

domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

To help my SEO I want to be able to create my own links using search friendly keywords in the links.

How do I change the node/1/2/ type links to text friendly URLs

Cool_Goose’s picture

Cool_Goose commented

Use pathauto and manually replace the menu items with the new aliases for the old nodes. it
s not that hard.
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Be Smart, Think Free, Choose OpenSource.

domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

The menu items have a locked in link to the item.

masande’s picture

masande commented

i've been seeing a lot of questions like this in the support forums. it's taken a little while for me to understand exactly what is being asked / desired, but your examples have finally clarified things.

while i'm not certain how to physically change the access url to the alias, the global_redirect module (http://drupal.org/project/globalredirect) handles the problem of duplicate pages accessed by different paths. to clarify, calls to http://www.example.com/node/555 are automatically redirected to http://example.com/this_is_a_node and thereby eliminating the duplication.

this module was developed specifically to combat duplicate urls and their impact on seo.

does that help?

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

I loaded this module earlier today. It appears in the list of modules, but there is no evidence of it within any of the other config screens for the site.
If it does everything of itself from pathauto or path there doesn't appear to be any indication of it.

I did load the path redirect module and it does have ascreen for making edits.

Anyway, I'm wondering just how to install and use the Global redirect?

masande’s picture

masande commented

this is a tiny module (it's only 48 lines long) that has no user interface or settings. it works completely on the backend and automatically redirects to any path alias that is provided. some of the helper modules are like this.

to test, enable the module and try to access one of your aliased nodes using the node number (http://www.example.com/node/555). if this returns an error or does not automatically redirect to its alias then the module is not working.

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

JamesGardner’s picture

JamesGardner commented

Proof of concept here:

http://adverlicio.us/node/4738 ... redirects seamlessly and automatically to ... http://adverlicio.us/apple_mac_give_vista_300x600_728x90

(which happens to be the funny new Apple Mac vs. PC online ad that people are buzzing about -- (Don't) Give Up on Vista!)

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adverlicio.us | online advertising archive
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domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

I am using Clean URLS, Pathauto and global redirect.

Got the pathauto to create aliases for links, including category and taxonomy_menu.

I then installed Global Redirect, which appears to be working. If I enter the alias URL it takes me to that page.

The only problem is the alias URL does not show up in the address line, just the node/1/1..etc.

I would prefer to just have the verbally descriptive link and not have the node/1/1/ type urls at all.

The descriptive linking may not be a biggy to some, but it sure helps in SEO.

I like to use keywords in urls, not sure it makes a big difference. It does help me in my thinking when I building a site, always keeping SEO in mind.

vm’s picture

vm commented

you can't rub out the node system in drupal. drupal identifies content by its node number.
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

domineaux’s picture

domineaux commented

I read somewhere that in Drupal 6.0 it would be possible to do the kind of Urls I'm thinking of.

It is possible in Joomla and Wordpress. I'm surprised it's not available for Drupal.

Text friendly urls are definitely an important requirement. Go onto just about any of the larger sites, especially those you find on the first return page from a google search and you'll find alot of the urls are text friendly for high ranking sites.

Anyway, I'm not sure just how important they are if you have good meta tools like the pagetitle and descriptions mods for Drupal.

One thing the nodes does do... it informs anyone viewing your sites that is knowledgeable about CMS that your site is Drupal. That is an area for concern to me for security reasons, but I won't go into it on this thread.

Thanks for the responses to everyone.

vm’s picture

vm commented

Drupal does have text friendly urls, in drupal they are known as clean urls and you can create a url alias (text friendly as you put it) using the path.module.

if you don't want the node path seen by bots, eliminate it robots.txt.

The idea that someone will know your site is drupal based on node is a futile argument as there are countless ways that someone can know your site is using Drupal even with the node path removed.

view the source luke, view the source

The security argument doesn't hold water, IMHO. If someone were that worried about what their site is using, they would roll their own and avoid a mass deployed CMS entirely.

_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

masande’s picture

masande commented

domineaux~

i must be missing something because exactly what you are describing is possible through the drupal path alias system. perhaps you have a bad configuration?

also, please explain what you mean by the 'address line'. is this where you enter a url at the top of your favorite browser? or is it the urls that appears at the bottom of your browser window when you roll over a link? or something else? is this behavior sitewide or only on certain pages / blocks?

as verymisunderstood explained, you cannot entirely do away with a node id but you can certainly hide that node/nis url from search bots. many drupal-based sites do this (see http://www.theonion.com | http://www.imamuseum.org | http://www.nyobserver.com | http://www.mtv.co.uk) and you can, too.

i think some info is missing before we can sort out what is happening with your website. btw, do you have a link to the problem site to show the behavior? that would be helpful, too.

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

Mark Sanders
Q Collective

Avitohol’s picture

Avitohol commented

In my case the clean URLs are working.
The problem is, that in multilanguage sites for the alias for different languages of the same page the path looks like:
www.mysite.com/en/page1 and www.mysite.com/de/page1 instead of for ex.
www.mysite.com/page1_en and www.mysite.com/page1_de, which I would preffer as I'm migrating existing site and would like to keep the existing URLs.
Although I can put manualy each URL I like, Drupal still creates this parts: /en/ and /de/ (in this example).
Is there a workaround, or I'll have to loose a month to wait for the search engines to index the pages with the new URLs?

negonicrac’s picture

negonicrac commented

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but what I think you need to use is nodeapi. This means the you will need to create a small module that will handle the extra functions that your adding to your nodes. I've just discovered this so my explanation may not be good enough but should get you going in the right direction. In my case I've used cck, views and nodereference to create both a gallery view and a story view. I defined both views urls as node/$arg/gallery and node/$arg/story and set the menu option to show the views as tabs. Now without pathauto the site preform as expected, gallery and story tabs appear on node pages. The point I think your at is that now you have turned pathauto on and discovered that everything isn't aliased. The power of nodeapi is that it can hijack the node during the creation process; and many other places. You just need to hijack the process after the node is submitted. here is the example of my nodeapi.

/**
 * Implementation of hook_nodeapi().
 */
function node_extras_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $a3 = NULL, $a4 = NULL) {
  switch ($op) {
    case 'submit':
      if($node->type != 'image')
      {
        path_set_alias('node/'. $node->nid .'/gallery', $node->path .'/gallery');
      }
      break;
  }
}

So this code above creates a path alias for the gallery page using path_set_alias(), [path module, line127], any time a non-image node is submitted. Have fun.

Also check out the screencast from drupaldojo.com about nodeapi.
http://drupaldojo.com/lesson/nodeapi

Drupal 5 API
http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_nodeapi/5

You might need the module development guide if you've never created a module. Just follow all the steps typing everything out. It's easier than it looks.
http://drupal.org/node/508

Also for any of the other Drupal users out there if I'm wrong or going about this the wrong way please correct me as I just figured this out today and if there is a better way or alternative I want to know it. Thank you.