Update question, second part

First off: thanks for your great feedback concerning our comments app and the module clicks tab. Both features will - due to your feedback - remain in our updated interface.

Another question arose, and maybe you can give me again your opinion. Currently, you can choose the URL of your articles manually. I use this feature myself for almost every article, but the only thing I do, is removing non-descriptive stop-words like "and, the, of, on, at, ...".

Since we'd like to make our whole interface as simple and most fun to work with, I'd like to remove this feature in favor of automatically optimized URLs. Concerning SEO, there will virtually be no impact. On the contrary, creating automatic URLs will protect Wizzley from harmful, spammy URLs - chosen by users that will never be seen in our forum ;-)

There are lots of interesting YouTube posts by Matt Cutts about URLs and SEO and it's always nice listening to what he says, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzMhlFZz9I

Basically, it comes down to this: The URL does count, but only a little. His advice is taking a few keywords of the title and create a URL from it. In several videos, he hints at the fact, that placing lots of keywords in the URL is harmful in different ways.

If we take Wikipedia - probably THE best ranking website worldwide - as another example: Wikipedia always takes the whole title and turns it into a dashed connected keyword-URL like so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_University_of_Science_and_Technology

To come to the point: I'd like to remove this, but I don't want to step on your feet  I know, some of you like this feature a lot. In any case, there will still be a secret workaround to get a custom URL, which we also tell you - via private message ;-)

You - the Wizzley authors - are the most important part of this website! So it's really up to you! What's your opinion?

I have never used it. Having been born on HP I tend towards what I am used to, and what is quick and easiest. At HP the title and URL can go hand-in-hand, i.e. the URL is created as a hyphenation of the ORIGINAL title. I create the first stab title from my KW research (that is, thinking of a title, then checking whether there is a better alternative, that people are actually searching on).

Although the URL is minimally important, it only gets shown on search results IF the breadcrumb is NOT. Since Wizzley et al have not set the breadcrumb option, it will be shown for Wizzley articles. Personally, I would prefer that the breadcrumb be shown, thus eliminating the URL reference on search results.

Removing superfluous noise words from a generated URL would seem sensible, if only to allow usable KW's to be included.

Once generated, URLs are static. As long as we can adjust the title to accommodate any new knowledge about the search tendencies of our intended audience, this is OK with me.

I do question the need to have a title that is different to the URL, especially when considering that products like MS put great import on URL, title, description etc each having the targeted KW phrase embedded. For this SEO reason I would suggest that it be better for each Wizzley writer to have no option but, initially, to have the URL auto-generated from the title entered - with 'noise' removed.

Hi Simon, personally as long as there is a workaround I'm on board but if this were to become completely removed I'd not like it at all- I use this feature specifically to tailor my urls as part of my SEO practice, and aesthetics when I link one of my articles around as some of my titles need to be longer to let the reader know the girth of my article's information, but the url should always be short as possible.

It's very important to me that I can continue to do so. One of the things I like so much about wizzley is that we can control the url to some degree and not have to have the title and url be the same, other than one main keyword based on a niche (I never saturate the url with keywords- Google isn't stupid and in fact likely watch for url's that look like kw stuffing)... again with a work around that's not too difficult I'd still be able to do it, so I'm all for your change based on your reasons, which I find commendable actually- I'm all for making the SEO of Wizzley safer.

That said, I see why you want to do it. As far as it's SEO value I think it does pull more value than you think, not at the local article or even author level but in bulk small SEO assets or liabilities can hurt a site or help it synergistically (too many spammy url titles and your sites SEO in in danger, but a lot of great ones and it boosts it more than a little - you have your individual article SEO, your account holders SEO and the collective Wizzley community (and assets in articles posted) SEO- in the long term the collective article base SEo can be hurt or helped by safe or spammy url's... so I see your point exactly.

When a site like this grows to large author/article basis the small SEO juice becomes, collectively a big win or a big loss- I think collectively it could affect SEO but at the individual level and account levels it may not especially at the individual level but your seeing it in the bigger picture at the site level so every collective SEO benefit helps overall (everybody wins or everybody loses if too many spammy url's exist). This is one reason HP went to subdomains, the individual authors can better control their SEO and the site as a whole isn't penalized for bad authors or works (we don't have this issue and won't as long as you continue to monitor the quality of articles and perhaps you could throw in the works some sort of title/url checker that checks for spammy/kw soaked titles...

I like Humagaia's idea to have 'noise' words (we refer to them as "joiner words" at the content mill :) like i, a, is, has, but, and and so on, removed... they have no place in the url as google ignores them anyway... we recently also discovered that they ignore some postfixes to words like q and s... but that's beside the point :)

I do like the option to set it to my own and hope there will always be that choice (maybe you could make that impossible if someone abuses it by setting a block to the workaround?) - but I like your idea of not making it public knowledge as spammers would surely eventually abuse it, but if they have to ask they may not know about it. Spammers don't likely spent much time reading old posts in the forum :) but when this posts usefulness expires you could change that part so there is nothing for them to read... 

I vote yes so long as a workaround is available :) I'm also on board for having the workaround activated only upon writers having to earn the right to use it (i.e. it could be turned on or off on your end) i.e. by having to have a certain amount of approved articles written first or something like you do with the privileged of earning more page views after a certain amount of articles published.

Jerrico

I do use this feature, because Sam's taught me how.  But I'm no Sam, so there's no real knowledge behind it.

How would you automatically optimize the URL for SEO?   If you were doing that, then it would be one less headache for me.

Thanks for the quick feedback! I already put the breadcrumbs point high on our todo list. Thanks humagaia :)

Hey 2uesday, that's an important question, indeed!

The URL gets fixed as soon as you publish an article. So you can change and play around while writing on it.

The automated URLs would be a useful feature that's pretty much what I do anyway. 

I do sometimes change the title later though because I realize that there's a better one - usually because it wasn't as clear or enticing as it could have been. 

If we need a special trick to do that then that's fine by me. 

Hi Simon -

Thanks for asking for our input. I vote - unreservedly and unequivocally - to keeping it the way it is. In other words, automating the URL but allowing us to manually change it if we want to - easily. I believe that this is one of the most unique and the best features of Wizzley and will be a disappointment for me if taken away.

A slightly different point - and not my primary reason for the vote above - is that if Wizzley ever allows a transfer of articles from one member to another, the transferee may like to customize the title and the URL to her liking.

Thanks again,

Bhavesh.

A tranfer of articles is already possible per special request to admin.

But why would anyone want to change the URL of an established page, and therefore lose Google rank and traffic?

chefkeem: 06. Jul 2012, 14:24

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A tranfer of articles is already possible per special request to admin.

But why would anyone want to change the URL of an established page, and therefore lose Google rank and traffic?

Good point, Chef. I am probably alone in this (story of my life!) but I would buy articles with solid content to the topic I want but is not Google optimized nor get much traffic. It's like buying a good business with solid fundamentals but weak marketing or a good book that can do better with better packaging. :)

If I buy an article - and I am in the market - my primary reason would be that the content is well written to the topic that I want but not necessarily ranking (yet) or has a lot of traffic. I would also like to brand the content to my liking which may mean that I repackage the content including the URL.

I understand that I write for reasons that are very different from most writers and don't represent the vast majority of the writers: I write to promote my business, engage certain demographics of readers and establish credentials in my niche.

Edited to say: So if this change is made, I will happily learn to live with it.

Hi Simon, How are you today?

In addition; I've been known to change my URL.  Could the soul reason be the option is available?  Maybe.

I've always wished other sites had this option, WHY?

Because, I try to write evergreen AMAP to keep the site fresh and current. 

Sounds like that will be plugged into the change.  

It feels like you're safe guarding the site. Great plan and much appreciated.  

I really like that feature and would hate to loose it! I take some care to create a url and a title that makes sense, is non-spammy and entices readers to click through, plus other legal SEO tricks regarding this. So if you change this, yes, pretty please, send me the work around via pm ;-) SY

Ok, got it  Promised, we won't remove it!

Simon: 06. Jul 2012, 19:05

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Ok, got it  Promised, we won't remove it!

Thanks a lot, Simon, I love how Wizzley takes its authors seriously! SY

I agree with Bhavesh Chef, as I mentioned to Simon long ago it would be a good commerce solution if good writers who can punch out great articles that are optimized etc could do so to help new members get on their feet (for a per article/wizzle cost) then could transfer it to them... this would go a step further than just selling them an article but rather an article that is plug and play- for some this is how they'd prefer to do it, others would learn from seeing not only the wizzle but it's inner dynamics (how it was built)...

It wouldn't be so much for an optomized one (althogh that could be done too and at that point of establishment it would be good not to change it, but perhaps they want to improve it if it's someone who wants a ready made wizzle but can tweak it to better perfection and is willing to start over... I think there would be a lot of people who'd like to buy wizzles for the quick start/learning experience or just people who aren't so much writers but do understand the dynamics of SEO, another group would be those who don't speak/write english well but want to participate in the opportunity to earn passive income from Wizzley.

Another is collaboration purposes, two writers sharing writing an article and going back and forth with who gets to use it... You'd still, of course like always approve them so quality would be maintained.

Simon mentioned that for this feature to be implemented it would have to have a popular vote which is understandable. I think it could stimulate the wizzley article supply/demand economy and get more articles written for those that need them but don't have the stamina or time to write them, and would help those who write well and fast, format well and fast etc... could earn some money from it like people selling sites on flippa...

Personally I'd likely buy some myself from people who are better at building the product based articles to balance out my portfolio and due to time constraints- another reason would be if a member wanted to quit and sell off their wizzles to other members they could (which would keep them on the site). Squidoo has this feature right now, you can transfer/sell a lens to any other SQ member... I'd like to see it implemented here but am fully willing to take a vote on it to see if it would be viable at this point. Transferring wizzles would be a great feature- I know a lot of people use it on SQ successfully.  

Jerrico

I just said it above - article transfers are possible by sending the pertinent info to our support address. 

I know, I've had one done already, but if enough people want to do it it's going to take a lot of the techs time, for now that's great, I was just posting the idea as was suggested by a member of your staff 8^x to gauge how the rest of the community felt and since one other brought it up I thought I'd take the opportunity to take the advice. 

Bhavesh: 06. Jul 2012, 15:51

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chefkeem: 06. Jul 2012, 14:24

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A tranfer of articles is already possible per special request to admin.

But why would anyone want to change the URL of an established page, and therefore lose Google rank and traffic?

I did change one slightly because it was so low and it rose in ranking but I don't know for sure that that's what did it. I do like the option to change. Just my humble opinion since I really don't have a clue....

In general I try to have kw in url and longtail kw in title, so automatic url will not make me happy although will not be the end of the world. I also have other reasons to use different urls and titles (evergreen content debate with katiem2 is only one of them).

About spammers: I agre with Jerrico_Usher and can expand this. Spammers can be controlled in many ways and situation with five published wizzes to earn dofollow links is pretty cool. I believe if there is a need, number of works in progress can be limited for all authors (wizzards?) or only some (less than certain amount of wizzes published, not enough activity in forum or other wizzes of other wizzards...). And there is still the flag for spam content on wizzes, right?

Uff, I think I have spent all my Zs for today...

Ok, it will stay mostly the same, except the option is a bit less obviously styled.

@humagaia: I just looked into the breadcrumbs thing. Schema.org doesn't support this for our article type content. We'd have to use type "webpage" for breadcrumbs; that's why we didn't implement it in the first place. However, there are alternative micro formats for achieving this. Since it's pretty simple, doesn't hit on the page load time and Google supports it, we'll integrate it in the new version.