Search-Engine-Friendly URL

[timotius_pamungkas]

Usually, i create company internal applications, which does not need any SEO-friendly URL. Right now, i'm creating a website for advertising company, which means a search engine optimization were preferrred.

Googling about SEO, i've found a term "friendly url", which actually a GET request which request params are decoded, instead of "?cat_id=2234", "?category=magazines" preferred.
Several implementation for JSF friendly url found on google, but mostly for JSF1, which supports only POST. But how about JSF2 implementation? furthermore, this application requires any user to login (guest can only has access to index.xhtml). Any advertisement detail, which is a GET request (something like "www.mysite.com?ad_id=423&cat_id=4225") can only be accessed after user login. In this case, does SEO-friendly url still can be used? I mean, does search engine bot can still go through this page?

Well, this is may first search engine friendly-website, built purely on PF, so if any PF user has experience and willing to share, it will be very great. Thanks

[SteveTaylor]

PrettyFaces has a JSF 2.0 build. I'm not sure how well it works with PrimeFaces though. I'll be trying it myself within the next couple of days.

[michiel]

PrettyFaces works well with PrimeFaces (using it myself)

[cagatay.civici]

I also strongly suggest PrettyFaces for public facing JSF sites. Author is a friend of mine and we usually keep in touch if a problem happens between PrimeFaces and PrettyFaces.

[timotius_pamungkas]

thanks, i've downloaded prettyfaces and will learn it soon
still, at real-life, if my application needs login to access most of pages (say, an advertising detail), will search engine bot index that page, even if user clicks the url, they will get HTTP 401 Unauthorized?
I only use a servlet filter to handle authorization (checking whether loginBean exists on http session)

[lincoln]

Hi @timotius,

We try hard to make sure that PrettyFaces and PrimeFaces work well together If you run in to any problems, feel free to let us know (at OcpSoft if it's a PrettyFaces problem.)

We think we've finally gotten most of the issues with Pretty and PrimeFaces (particularly with ASYNC requests,) flushed out with our latest preview release: 3.1.1-SNAPSHOT, which isn't released yet, but will be within a week or so. If you run in to any problems using PrettyFaces 3.1.0 try the preview.

Also, if there is anything you need that PrettyFaces doesn't (or you think it doesn't do for you, let us know and we'll try to help you!

--Lincoln

[lincoln]

if my application needs login to access most of pages (say, an advertising detail), will search engine bot index that page, even if user clicks the url, they will get HTTP 401 Unauthorized?

Probably not. Nobody "knows" how search engines work because they keep their trade secrets... well... secret.

But I can tell you from personal experience that if your page is unavailable 401, 404, etc, that Google will probably not index it highly, if at all. What I recommend is to create "Landing pages" that display a brief section of content about what would be there if the user logged in, and provide a login screen right there on that "landing page" that will bring the user where they want to go.

That's the best way I know of to get your page indexed while also controlling security. It means you need to use a more complicated solution than a single Authorization Filter, but PrettyFaces should be able to help with at getting that to work:

(See DynaView in the PrettyFaces docs.)

[timotius_pamungkas]

thanks a lot lincoln & optimus, currently i'm still reading the concept of search engine optimization. I'll use prettyfaces, from the documentaion, it doesn't seem very complicated to generate simple seo-friendly urls.

[cagatay.civici]

Thanks for showing up Lincoln