Re: Thoughts on wpd.mx domain

Hi, Patrick-

As much as I appreciate Frozenice's many contributions, I feel the same 
way about this particular issue.

Before the launch, I bought the wpd.cc domain for the same purpose, but 
I was afraid of just this, that it would get indexed, so I didn't really 
promote it. I wasn't sure that it would be harmful; I'm glas that 
someone with SEO skills can speak definitively about it.

Lea pointed out earlier that Twitter has a fixed length for all links, 
so the shortener isn't needed there, and in fact they use their own 
shortener, so it would be doubly-redirected.

I do like the idea of shortlinks like webplatform.org/apis/canvas to 
http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/canvas, for links in slides, etc. 
If Frozenice were to install his shortener on webplatform.org, would 
that still hurt SEO?

Regards-
-Doug

On 4/23/13 2:59 AM, Patrick D'Souza wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It has been brought to my notice that wpd.mx has been setup as a url
> shortener for webplatform.org urls. for e.g. wpd.mx/apis/canvas 301s to
> http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/canvas.
> <http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/canvas>
> This url has been indexed by Google and I don't like the thought of
> different urls pointing to the same content when a user is searching for
> canvas in a search engine. It dilutes the positive effects of a
> webplatform.org url.
>
> Sorry to be a little picky but we should avoid all such short urls which
> confuse a user and in turn result in duplicate content being served to
> search engines. I see the benefit of a url shortener as it can be useful
> in social media campaigns as well as brand promotion for
> webplatform.org. I propose we use this url shortener on webplatform.org
> itself for e.g. webplatform.org/font-size which would redirect to
> docs.webplatform.org/css/properties/font-size. Every 301 is one
> additional request for a user which is not good in terms of performance.
> I would appreciate if we avoid 301s as far as possible unless it's
> absolutely required. Always, keep it simple :)
>
> Any thoughts and feedback are much appreciated.
>
> - Patrick
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 23 April 2013 07:11:17 UTC