Re: Page rank and URL's

On Fri, 05 May 2006 16:41:37 +0200, Darren Tipton <apples (AT) lemons (DOT) com>
wrote:

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread/
and
http://www.example.com/hot-to-make-bread.php

But is there any tenendency to rank one of them better than the other?

While I have heard of the reason for

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread/

to be ranked below

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread

I doubt there is a reason for the

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread

to rank below

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread.php

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info/pH
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl

On Fri, 05 May 2006 17:26:52 +0200, Darren Tipton <apples (AT) lemons (DOT) com>
wrote:

While I have heard of the reason for

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread/

to be ranked below

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread

Can you recall the reason for this?

First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances Google
calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1.

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info/pH
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl

__/ [ Borek ] on Friday 05 May 2006 16:58 \__

On Fri, 05 May 2006 17:26:52 +0200, Darren Tipton <apples (AT) lemons (DOT) com
wrote:

While I have heard of the reason for

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread/

to be ranked below

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread

Can you recall the reason for this?

First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances Google
calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1.

Best,
Borek

If true, this indicates that many CMS packages are flawed (or non-optimal)
from an (Google-centric) SEO perspective...

Can you point to something which backs this? If there is a reference I can
show, perhaps we can change the way WordPress handles URL's (permalinks) in
Apache's .htaccess.

Best wishes,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE GNU/Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
5:00pm up 7 days 23:57, 12 users, load average: 1.82, 1.17, 0.86
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine

On Fri, 05 May 2006 18:05:58 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances
Google calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1.

If true, this indicates that many CMS packages are flawed (or
non-optimal) from an (Google-centric) SEO perspective...

Can you point to something which backs this? If there is a reference I
can
show, perhaps we can change the way WordPress handles URL's (permalinks)
in Apache's .htaccess.

Will be not easy, as I don't recall where I have seen it, but I have seen
it more then once, and I am not sure if it was not confirmed by SEODave in
some discussion here. But I may be completely wrong (as to the Dave, not
to the fact that I have seen this information somwhere).

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info/pH
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl

On Fri, 05 May 2006 18:05:58 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

If true, this indicates that many CMS packages are flawed (or
non-optimal)
from an (Google-centric) SEO perspective...

Can you point to something which backs this? If there is a reference I
can
show, perhaps we can change the way WordPress handles URL's (permalinks)
in
Apache's .htaccess.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum34/377.htm

See Woz post.

But that I googled, that's not the source I saw before.

However, as I see it it is a problem only for new pages, established ones
have propery calculated PR. That's why I always add "in some
circumstances" when posting about subdirectories PR

Best,
Borek
--
http://www.chembuddy.com
http://www.ph-meter.info/pH
http://www.terapia-kregoslupa.waw.pl

__/ [ Borek ] on Friday 05 May 2006 18:11 \__

On Fri, 05 May 2006 18:05:58 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

If true, this indicates that many CMS packages are flawed (or
non-optimal)
from an (Google-centric) SEO perspective...

Can you point to something which backs this? If there is a reference I
can
show, perhaps we can change the way WordPress handles URL's (permalinks)
in
Apache's .htaccess.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum34/377.htm

See Woz post.

But that I googled, that's not the source I saw before.

However, as I see it it is a problem only for new pages, established ones
have propery calculated PR. That's why I always add "in some
circumstances" when posting about subdirectories PR

Best,
Borek

Ahhhh.... I see... thanks for the link, Borek. Muchly appreciated!

Meanwhile I have been looking at the WordPress code, which builds all
URL's with trailing slashes by default. In fact, the whole thing could
make you wonder if addition of relevant 'levels', e.g.
/category/internet/2006/my-page.html , should actually drain ranks.
Context is often (if not always) a positive thing and directory structure
can provide that. Assuming no re-write rules, it's the difference between
~/my_page and ~/my_page/index.html (or whatever other extension is
assumed), which transparently translates to ~/my_page/ . When I come to
think about it, search engines merge ~/my_page/ anf ~/my_page , so why
should one surpass another? It is difficult to see.

I guess one could write a simple rule to just strip off of any trailing
slash (last character strictly) in any URL. I don't think this can ever
have a detrimental effect, but having said that, I suppose search engines
drop that slash already.


Many thanks,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "I think I think, therefore I think I am"
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
6:15pm up 8 days 1:12, 12 users, load average: 0.79, 0.88, 0.86
http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information

Borek <m.borkowski (AT) delete (DOT) chembuddy.these.com.parts> wrote:

On Fri, 05 May 2006 17:26:52 +0200, Darren Tipton <apples (AT) lemons (DOT) com
wrote:

While I have heard of the reason for

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread/

to be ranked below

http://www.example.com/how-to-make-bread

Can you recall the reason for this?

First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances
Google calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1.

IMNSHO this is just a SEO myth.

--
John Freelance Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Firefox Keywords: http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained.html

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

Ahhhh.... I see... thanks for the link, Borek. Muchly appreciated!

Meanwhile I have been looking at the WordPress code, which builds
all URL's with trailing slashes by default.

Depending on how the page is generated, the trailing slash might be added
automatically.

In fact, the whole
thing could make you wonder if addition of relevant
'levels', e.g. /category/internet/2006/my-page.html , should
actually drain ranks.

No, it doesn't.

Context is often (if not always) a positive
thing and directory structure can provide that.

In an URL there are no such things as a directory structure. Just think of
it as a coincidence that in some cases the path of a URL is mapped on a
directory structure.

I guess one could write a simple rule to just strip off of any
trailing slash (last character strictly) in any URL. I don't think
this can ever have a detrimental effect, but having said that, I
suppose search engines drop that slash already.

Depends on how your software is configured. If you use a program to build
pages for webserver requests

http://example.com/foo/bar

might work

If you make a foo directory with bar sub directory, with in bar index.html

http://example.com/foo/bar

Is redirected to

http://example.com/foo/bar/

and the webserver returns index.html.


--
John Freelance Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Firefox Keywords: http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained.html

On Fri, 05 May 2006 19:05:05 +0200, Borek
<m.borkowski (AT) delete (DOT) chembuddy.these.com.parts> wrote:

On Fri, 05 May 2006 18:05:58 +0200, Roy Schestowitz
newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances
Google calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1.

If true, this indicates that many CMS packages are flawed (or
non-optimal) from an (Google-centric) SEO perspective...

Can you point to something which backs this? If there is a reference I
can
show, perhaps we can change the way WordPress handles URL's (permalinks)
in Apache's .htaccess.

Will be not easy, as I don't recall where I have seen it, but I have seen
it more then once, and I am not sure if it was not confirmed by SEODave in
some discussion here. But I may be completely wrong (as to the Dave, not
to the fact that I have seen this information somwhere).

What do you mean by "not confirmed by..."?

If you mean I've posted information to support the opposite of what
you said in an earlier post when asked about different URL structure.

you said-
"First one can be treated as subdirectory and in some circumstances
Google calculates subdirectory PR as upper directory PR minus 1."

Then yes, I don't believe the above is true at all.

Real PR (not toolbar PR) has nothing whatsoever to do with a pages
location, PR is about number and quality of links so you can have a
PR0 home page and a PR7 page that's three plus directory levels deep.
In the past Google used to guess the PR (as shown on the toolbar) of a
new/recently indexed/or never indexed page by assuming if it's one
level below root it will likely be 1 PR below what root is and each
level deeper reduces PR by a further 1 PR point. But, this was just an
estimate and never part of the algo that calculates rankings. So a new
page showing PR7 from say a free web host like Geocities DOES NOT
result in what you'd expect from a real PR7 page.

Also when those guessed PR pages finally went through a PR update they
lost the guessed PR value and received a real PR value.

Years back I tried an experiment with a free host that gave estimated
PR7 pages, but soon as an update occurred they dropped to PR0 or
whatever they deserved based on the links to them (always low PR).
There was also no indication of ranking benefits from having a high
guessed PR value.

Now Google gives new pages PR0 (which makes much more sense), though
some new dynamic URLs will give a guessed PR value, but again it
doesn't help with rankings.

Best,
Borek

David
--
PageRank Explained http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/pagerank.html
Free SEO Advice http://www.morearnings.com/2006/03/31/free-seo-advice/