Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Page)

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Nalates
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Nalates »

Those came out of Google (their site)... somewhere... I'll find the links.
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by rarified »

Under this topic, but a small diversion...

Does anyone recall a website with a large number of Guild icons, such as the Guild of Engineering?

I was thinking about ideas for the favicon.ico file for the foundry, and the GoE seemed like a good candidate. I don't think that guild carries any baggage with the MOUL community, so it should be pretty neutral.

I think at some time in the distant past someone had put together a set of symbols for each of the guilds that have been named in D'ni history, but I can't remember where I saw it.

_R
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Mac_Fife »

rarified wrote:Does anyone recall a website with a large number of Guild icons, such as the Guild of Engineering?
Possibly this page?:
http://amcalmaron.deviantart.com/art/D- ... -171256459

Edit: The Guild of Engineers was one of the "Major Guilds" and was mentioned in the Book of Ti'ana. Maybe worth pinging Cyan for an OK. Or maybe JW will want to mandate a single favicon for the entire OU domain?
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Nalates »

@Mac,
I had to dig some for where I got the REL= possibilities. I made a list and let it go. SO I had to dig up the source. The process reminded of many of the things I learned when I did the initial research.

GooGle 2005 Data of use: Link Relationships
The CONTENTS comes from this page. They point out CONTENTS START is a popular choice too.

Another aspect of linking is reverse linking automatically that allows one to link back as well as drill down. I’m behind on digging into this tech and how Goole/Yahoo are using it. But, I’ve seen posts of mine in Google before I finished typing them. It is disconcerting to be working in a draft in WordPress and doing research that turns up your in progress writting in a search. Pingback

The re-look at REV= use also reminded me that REV is omitted from the HTML 5 spec. It is to be replaced with REL=.

The HTML 5 spec for REL= has a smaller list here.

The current list of Link Types is being constructed here: REL Extentions.

Exactly how Google is using these REL values is foggy at best. One of my SEO news letter suggests that using these is helping placement but it remains a bit iffy. I think they are worthwhile and I’ve seen some improvement after their addition to some sites.

Google stated some intent and information in their Webmaster Tools. This is a 20 minute video about the use of rel=canonical which shows they are looking at REL elements. It reminded me the link element using canonical is important in cleaning up incoming links that are inconsistent, which helps search engines avoid classing the same page a duplicate content under various URL’s and degrading rakings.

Code: Select all

<link rel="canonical" href="http://forums.openuru.org/index.php" /> 
Adding the above to the page header so that it appears only on the board index would be good. But, it is another pesky ongoing change. If it is easy, go for it. If not skip it.

Code: Select all

<link rel="canonical" href="http://openuru.org/" />
Would be good to add to the sites home landing page.

If you skip the video, these elements are to fix incoming links that add or omit ‘www’. They correct capitalization differences and other inconsistencies in incoming links. That allows the search engines to know what is and is not duplicate content. As far as Yahoo and Google are concerned http://openuru.org/ and http://www.openuru.org/ are two different pages. One of them will be considered duplicate content and depreciated in the rankings. This has lots of complex implications. Pick one or the other.

While Google and Yahoo do try to figure this out, they make mistakes. Save them the trouble.

The rel=”canonical” is for incoming links one cannot control. Links within the OU site should be consistent. If one is past that, not to worry use the REL and skip changing loads of links. The use of canonical should be page specific, a specific incoming URL to a specific page. That can be complex in a forum, wiki, and blog. So, be careful where one puts them. If in doubt, omit.

The URL you want avoided say http://www.openuru.org/, should generate a redirect to the preferred URL. Whether that is a PHP if statement covering:

Code: Select all

 <?php 
	header ('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
	header ('Location: http://openuru.org/ ');
?>
…or a mod_rewrite is a matter of choice. See:Redirection with mod_rewrite

Let me know if something is confusing… I tend to leave out pieces I forget others might not know.
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by JWPlatt »

Mac has an update for SEO waiting for me to push out to the server. I've been hooked by a CK project that's absorbing as much of my time as I'm willing to give it, which has been 10+/12+ hours a day lately. (It's not MQO.) Not much end in sight, but I'm not willing to neglect things here for too long. Let's see if Mac wants to do do anything else in the next day or two.

rarified, not to diminish your enthusiasm, but we're neither a guild nor IC. And whomever founds the "real" Guild of Engineers might want to use those icons too. That said, if anyone fits the profile for it, we do! What harm could a teenie, tiny little icon do? Up to you. I did make up a quick favicon a few weeks ago. It doesn't look very good. I intend to do better. If you would like a favicon, let's also see if you like whatever I come up with. Or we could launch a thread/contest like the one that got us our cool logo, courtesy Tweek (though he'd prefer I leave out the 3D effect - still thinking on that).
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rarified
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by rarified »

Inquiry not meant to carry the weight of D'ni along with it. Just looking for meaningful branding that would be recognizable as related to the OU (and general Uru) context. ;)

I can just pop a copy of your icon in there for now. Various tools replace it as you navigate around anyway.

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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Mac_Fife »

It may be possible to add the 'canonical' relation to the site home page, but getting it into the wiki and forum is too much work. Since these all use common, templated <head> sections, it'd mean going into the code to make the relation appear on only the index pages, rather than just being something we can do in the styling. That's less of a problem for the site home page (since it's our own code), but creates a maintenance problem for the forum and wiki code.

Implementing a mod_rewrite would be down to JW to do (I don't have that level of access to this server). My favourite use of mod_rewrite is bouncing "internet marketers" to places they don't want to be, but that's another story :evil: . Using mod-rewrite with reg exps needs to be done carefully, to avoid unexpected side effects in subdomains.

{Edit}
Harping back to some of the earlier discussions in this thread, I just came across this: http://ie6countdown.com/ - So even Microsoft are trying to get people to stop using IE6 :D
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Nalates »

As I wrote earlier, no one item in placement work is the end all be all. I expect many of the suggestions and tips can only be used in limited ways. Keep it Simple Smarty . :)

I've done a bunch of mod_rewrite. I use a reg_exp tester to write the things because I find the expressions so confusing. I usually try a series of .htaccess to control the rewrite and keep it reasonably simple and independent. But, I far from an expert with rewrite.

Using IE6 is just asking for trouble...

My Chrome browser is having lots more problems. It is hardened to avoid hijacks and attacks and that creates problems for forum and blog editors. Some of the Facebook stuff crashes it. Any Lithium blog will crash it if you open the blog's editor section.

The complex part of web design, for now, is all the smart phone browsers one cannot identify from the server... want to adjust this site for cell phones?
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Mac_Fife »

Nalates wrote:The complex part of web design, for now, is all the smart phone browsers one cannot identify from the server... want to adjust this site for cell phones?
If we were setting ourselves up to be "another fan site" I'd maybe think that was worth considering. But there other things here on the "resources" side of things that make us different to most other fan sites and also make that all too much of a leap to be viable on a voluntary, non-commercial basis.
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Nalates
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Re: Open Uru Site Styling and Organization (was Wiki Main Pa

Post by Nalates »

You know I was teasing.

Trying to have the same amount of content on a mobile site as a standard web site takes some serious planning. I think this site is look really nice.
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