Hi, While talking to a few bloggers from the Java ecosphere at JavaLand last week, the question came up why we have the date in the URL of blog posts. Arguably, it doesn't add value there (we show the date on the actual posts themselves), and makes the URLs slightly worse to read. In particular, we don't allow for browsing posts by year or month (e.g. http://in.relation.to/2018/), so it's even a bit misleading. Omitting the date would also make the original idea of the URL fly again ("in relation to xyz"). Anyone with thoughts whether we should change the scheme (keeping existing ones of course)? That all said, I've no idea whether the date in there is good to have or not in terms of SEO. I suppose it doesn't matter. --Gunnar _______________________________________________ hibernate-dev mailing list hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev

> The data in the post slug only makes sense for news sites where posts are highly associated to a given date. A lot of our posts are. Release announcements and weekly newsletters in particular. I personally don't see the problem with dates in URLs. I don't see any problem with not having them, either. But I do see a problem with changing the URL scheme: potential dead links, SEO nightmare... We would need a damn good reason to do it, and I'm not sure those you mentioned are enough... On Thu, 22 Mar 2018 at 12:29 Vlad Mihalcea <mihalcea.vlad(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > Hi, > > The data in the post slug only makes sense for news sites where posts are > highly associated to a given date. > > In our case, the data works against us as people might think an article is > outdated by just inspecting the slug and thinking that > a 3 year-old article might not be relevant anymore. > > It's better if we use simple slug names that capture the article focus > keywords and remove the date altogether. > > Vlad > > On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Gunnar Morling <gunnar(a)hibernate.org&gt; > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > While talking to a few bloggers from the Java ecosphere at JavaLand last > > week, the question came up why we have the date in the URL of blog > posts. > > > > Arguably, it doesn't add value there (we show the date on the actual > posts > > themselves), and makes the URLs slightly worse to read. In particular, > we > > don't allow for browsing posts by year or month (e.g. > > http://in.relation.to/2018/), so it's even a bit misleading. Omitting > the > > date would also make the original idea of the URL fly again ("in > relation > > to xyz"). > > > > Anyone with thoughts whether we should change the scheme (keeping > existing > > ones of course)? > > > > That all said, I've no idea whether the date in there is good to have or > > not in terms of SEO. I suppose it doesn't matter. > > > > --Gunnar > > _______________________________________________ > > hibernate-dev mailing list > > hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev > > > _______________________________________________ > hibernate-dev mailing list > hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev > -- Yoann Rodiere yoann(a)hibernate.org / yrodiere(a)redhat.com Software Engineer Hibernate NoORM team

> I personally don't see the problem with dates in URLs. I don't see any > problem with not having them, either. But I do see a problem with changing > the URL scheme: potential dead links, SEO nightmare... We would need a damn > good reason to do it, and I'm not sure those you mentioned are enough... +1 > In our case, the data works against us as people might think an article is > outdated by just inspecting the slug and thinking that > a 3 year-old article might not be relevant anymore. Even if you remove it from the URL, you still have the published date on every article. The user can still see when the article has been written. This makes sense because we are talking about blog posts. And this argument can also be used in favor of dates: without the date, you might give the impression that the article is always up-to-date and I don't think that's realistic. I'm not against changing it, but, unless we have some real reasons related to SEO or similar, I wouldn't worry too much. Most users are probably more interested to know when the article has been updated anyway (and not when has been published). Davide On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 12:24 PM, Yoann Rodiere <yoann(a)hibernate.org&gt; wrote: >> The data in the post slug only makes sense for news sites where posts are > highly associated to a given date. > > A lot of our posts are. Release announcements and weekly newsletters in > particular. > > I personally don't see the problem with dates in URLs. I don't see any > problem with not having them, either. But I do see a problem with changing > the URL scheme: potential dead links, SEO nightmare... We would need a damn > good reason to do it, and I'm not sure those you mentioned are enough... > > On Thu, 22 Mar 2018 at 12:29 Vlad Mihalcea <mihalcea.vlad(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> The data in the post slug only makes sense for news sites where posts are >> highly associated to a given date. >> >> In our case, the data works against us as people might think an article is >> outdated by just inspecting the slug and thinking that >> a 3 year-old article might not be relevant anymore. >> >> It's better if we use simple slug names that capture the article focus >> keywords and remove the date altogether. >> >> Vlad >> >> On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Gunnar Morling <gunnar(a)hibernate.org&gt; >> wrote: >> >> > Hi, >> > >> > While talking to a few bloggers from the Java ecosphere at JavaLand last >> > week, the question came up why we have the date in the URL of blog posts. >> > >> > Arguably, it doesn't add value there (we show the date on the actual >> posts >> > themselves), and makes the URLs slightly worse to read. In particular, we >> > don't allow for browsing posts by year or month (e.g. >> > http://in.relation.to/2018/), so it's even a bit misleading. Omitting >> the >> > date would also make the original idea of the URL fly again ("in relation >> > to xyz"). >> > >> > Anyone with thoughts whether we should change the scheme (keeping >> existing >> > ones of course)? >> > >> > That all said, I've no idea whether the date in there is good to have or >> > not in terms of SEO. I suppose it doesn't matter. >> > >> > --Gunnar >> > _______________________________________________ >> > hibernate-dev mailing list >> > hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> hibernate-dev mailing list >> hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev >> > -- > Yoann Rodiere > yoann(a)hibernate.org / yrodiere(a)redhat.com > Software Engineer > Hibernate NoORM team > _______________________________________________ > hibernate-dev mailing list > hibernate-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/hibernate-dev

Note I'm not suggesting to change any existing URLs. Rather my question is, should we go to the date-less schema for new posts going forward.