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Old Nov 27, 2007, 03:47 PM
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I was wondering if there was any plans to obscure IDs in URLs and instead use catalogue numbers and/or full album titles in SEO (search engine optimization) style. I know that cat# alone won't work as a primary ID, but there shouldn't be any instances where two different albums will have the same cat# and title. If we wanted, we could also add a single artist name to the URL for finer control (e.g. http://vgmdb.net/db/albums/sscx-1004...track_mitsuda/).

IDs work great internally, but externally they just don't make any logical sense. What do you think?
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Old Nov 27, 2007, 06:56 PM
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Blah mentioned doing that at some point. You'll have to explain what else we'd gain by doing this kind of SEO though, since VGMdb is already the first result Google returns for nearly all cat number searches. If we'd lose all the link history that we've already built up, it might not be worth it, especially since it's hard to improve from "first place."
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Old Nov 27, 2007, 08:44 PM
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I suspect we're placed high for cat number searches simply because we include them in our page titles.

SEO works using redirects, so people who visit the old URL will still end up at the new optimized address. So do search engines, and by all accounts they don't penalize ranking for 301-type redirects.
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Old Nov 27, 2007, 10:03 PM
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I'm not suggesting this for the search engine benefit; I just mentioned SEO to denote an example of URL format. I think the benefit here is readability. Having URLs that make logical sense just by reading them, and even provide some useful information in themselves. These URLs are going to be all over the Internet; many of which will be seemingly permanent. And there's no telling if VGMdb or its IDs will function exactly the same years from now.
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Old Nov 27, 2007, 11:23 PM
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Not sure if we need to put the composer's name alongside the album title (and that still won't help in certain cases, such as an album reprint which uses the same old catalogue number). In fact I'm wary about utilizing the album title at all (even if it makes for much, much friendlier URLs) since it is more susceptible to change than the catalogue number. A way to mitigate this would be to store all the SEO'd urls and associated IDs in a separate table, redirecting visitors to newer versions as changes are made. That would solve the issue of albums without catalogue numbers, too.
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Old Nov 29, 2007, 11:19 PM
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A table like that would be awesome, IMO. But I mean, it's all up to you.

By the way, I think release year would probably be better than composer name. Makes it easier for reprints.
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Old Nov 30, 2007, 03:10 AM
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I guess a foolproof way would be like

albumtitle_(year_reprint)

Since there's at least one instance of an album in the database which has a reprint in the same year.
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