Episode / Video Permalinks

[rawkode]

Currently, the video pages are accessible via the video's ID:

https://rawkode.academy/watch/a1djak0y4g0irt3wnrg17uwa/

This isn't ideal for SEO and human memory.

Notes before we get into this:

• All Episodes are Videos
• Not All Videos are Episodes

If a video is an Episode, it has attached show information and an episode identifier. For these, the canonical URL should be: rawkode.academy/show-name/episode-name such as rawkode.academy/rawkode-live/hands-on-with-devenv

But what about videos that are not episodes? Perhaps rawkode.live/watch/ngrok-global-load-balancing ?

[icepuma]

How does YouTube solve this problem, as they don't have human-friendly URLs?

In case you want to go full human readable:
You could either slug the hell out of the information you're having: <show-name>-<episode-name> in case you have that hierarchy, <video-title> when you have a single video. When a slug is already defined, you need to fallback to something else, like adding a -1 or so

Or you could go semi human readable and generate urls with 4 random words connected by dashes e.g. human-book-tiger-car

[rawkode]

How does YouTube solve this problem, as they don't have human-friendly URLs?

YouTube uses /watch?v={ID}

I'm thinking we should go human readable, because according to our lord and saviour, AI, it's an important part of SEO these days.

It's not ideal to put random IDs into URLs for SEO purposes. Here's why:

Impact on SEO:

• No Keyword Relevance: Random IDs don't provide any information about the content of the page to search engines. Keywords in URLs help search engines understand what your page is about, improving its ranking potential.
• Poor User Experience: URLs with random IDs are not user-friendly. People are less likely to click on links that look confusing or suspicious. A clear, descriptive URL helps users understand what they'll find when they click.
• Missed Opportunity for Branding: Descriptive URLs can reinforce your brand and keywords, helping with recognition and recall.

Example:

• Bad URL: www.example.com/product/789456123
• Good URL: www.example.com/product/red-running-shoes

Exceptions:

There are some cases where using IDs in URLs might be necessary for technical reasons. If you must use IDs, try to:

• Combine with keywords: Include relevant keywords alongside the ID.
• Keep IDs short: Shorter IDs are less visually disruptive.
• Use hyphens to separate words: This improves readability.

Overall:

Prioritize clear, descriptive URLs with relevant keywords to improve your website's SEO performance and user experience. Avoid random IDs whenever possible.

Then I asked specifically about SEO:

Yes, the URL is important in SEO, although it's not the most heavily weighted ranking factor. Here's why:

1. User Experience:

   Readability: A clear, concise URL helps users understand what the page is about before clicking. For example, www.example.com/blog/seo-tips is much more informative than www.example.com/page?id=12345.
   Trust and credibility: A well-structured URL can make your site look more professional and trustworthy, encouraging users to click.

2. Search Engine Signals:

   Keywords: Including relevant keywords in your URL can help search engines understand the page's topic.
   Relevance: URLs are a small ranking factor. Search engines use them to determine the relevance of a page to a user's search query.
   Crawlability: A logical URL structure makes it easier for search engine crawlers to access and index your pages.

3. Link Sharing:

   Shareability: Short, descriptive URLs are easier to share on social media and other platforms.
   Anchor text: URLs often serve as the anchor text for links, which can influence your search rankings.

Best Practices for SEO-Friendly URLs:

Keep them short and descriptive: Use relevant keywords but avoid keyword stuffing.
Use hyphens to separate words: www.example.com/red-shoes is better than www.example.com/redshoes.
Use lowercase letters: Avoid using uppercase letters in your URLs.
Match URLs to page content: The URL should accurately reflect the content of the page.
Avoid using unnecessary parameters: Keep URLs as clean and simple as possible.

While URLs are just one piece of the SEO puzzle, optimizing them can contribute to better user experience, improved search visibility, and increased traffic to your website.

[icepuma]

I agree with the human readable URLs. It should be simple to slugify a video with all the information attached to it

[rawkode]

To be clear, my problem isn't making /rawkode-live/hands-on-devenv work, it's wondering how to deviate this in a "clean" way that non-episodic videos also make sense.

Perhaps we should take a page from Docker's book and use /_/ngrok-global-load-balancing where _ is used to denote "global" or "no show"?

I also considered /tutorial/ngrok-global-load-balancing, but tutorials may be something else in the future.

Or perhaps we go YouTube's way, and support both:

• watch?v=rawkode-live/hands-on-devenv
• watch?v=ngrok-global-load-balancer

But to be honest, query params feels a little shit and I'm not sure this would work with Astro collections for static generation.

[icepuma]

Why not https://rawkode.academy/watch/rawkode-live-<episode-title> and https://rawkode.academy/watch/<non-episodic-title>?

[rawkode]

Hmm, good question.

In my head, /watch would actually disappear. I just put it in now while we work this out.

I suspect people will visit the URLs in the following order, for one given use-case:

• /
• /shows
• /shows/rawkode-live
• /shows/rawkode-live/episode-name

I like this evolution / journey.

Perhaps for non-episodic we keep it simple and do:

• /
• /videos
• /videos/ngrok-global-load-balancing

Of course, it gets a little weird because episodic content will also end up on /videos and you'd then jump to /shows/rawkode-live/whatever; but perhaps I'm now letting my brain get in the way of shipping something already better than "good enough"

[icepuma]

You either embed a video or link to it. Everything can live under /<watch|video|...>