Greetings Boxers,
We use Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URL's exclusively on our sites.
What we've discovered so far is that the limitation in tracking stats WITH
extended SEF URLs appears to be with the web server's logging software.
If IIS doesn't store the full Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URL (and it
doesn't), you obviously can't extract that information later, using
LiveStats, WebTrends, or any other log-reader style stats package.
If there's a stats program out there that takes over the LOGGING, and can
store the full SEF URL information, I'd be happy to look at it... with
reservations on performance issues.
IIS *IS* capable of storing "URI" information in the log files... but you
have to use the traditional query strings, with a "?" in order for that data
to appear in the log file. Then, if you have a stats program that uses URI
information, you'd get more details in your stats. LiveTrends doesn't use
URI information, either, at least not without doing some insane fudging.
We may be resorting to writing a stored proc or trigger that would execute
on each CF page load, and store the required information in the database...
and then trudge through writing our own reports. This is NOT a desired
solution, however -- we'd be reinventing a wheel, making it more square in
the process.
This is the ONLY real drawback to fusebox that I have run into to date, and
it's not really a fusebox problem. Running everything through one page
kills your details stats tracking, reducing you to "page impressions" type
of information (along with the unaffected data like date/time, referrer,
etc.).
If ANYONE has solved this problem, WE ARE ALL EARS!!!
Marc Funaro, President
Advantex Technical Consulting Services
-----Original Message-----
From: Eron Cohen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 11:34 AM
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Search Engine Safe URLs (now w/Webtrends)
Hi Folks,
I would like to extend this thread further by asking a
question about Webtrends. But first off, anyone
interested in search engine technology, I recommend
joining the I-search mailing list:
http://www.audettemedia.com/lists/isearch/subscribe.html
I have to agree with Max, it really IS easy to
impliment Search Engine Safe URLs if you are using the
fusebox <CF_formurl2attributes> custom tag and
Internet Information Server (I think its possible with
Apache now too). Its probably worth it too, because
as Max stated, very few search engines will do
anything with your URL parameters which means that if
you do nothing else, its possible that only your
default INDEX.CFM page would be indexed. The point of
search engine safe URLs is to "Trick" a search engine
into thinking the query string is actually the path to
an actual HTML file.
For those of you who don't already know, to use search
engine safe URLs you basically just switch your ? and
&'s to /s and if you want to be extra clever you add a
"fake" filename.HTM to the end (I use the name of the
fuseaction for this.
So instead of:
http://www.mysite.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=test&color=blue
It would be:
http://www.mysite.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/test/color/blue/test.htm
The question I have is: are then any techniques for
getting webtrends to see search engine safe URLS as
actual URLS. It would sure be great to find a way to
get webtrends to give me more accurate information
about my site. Any info or pointers would be
appreciated.
Eron
-----Original Message-----
From: Max Paperno [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 6:24 PM
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Search Engine Safe URLs
>
>
>http://forums.allaire.com/devconf/Index.cfm?CFID=130074&CFTOKEN=79816184&&M
essage_ID=18401#Message18401
That thread still lives! Ben's original post is what
inspired myself and others to use this method.
I'm not sure how it's "not worth the hassle" if you
care about being indexed. True, Google will now index
URLs with query strings, but AFAIK that's the only
major search engine that does. It's really quite easy
to implement, especially using Fusebox.
I suggest you check the list archives, if you haven't
yet... this topic has been beat to death in the last
month or two.
Cheers,
-Max
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