I would like to be able to make http://www.peninsulashops.com/Content/Members/MemberPublicProfile.aspx?pageId=379519&memberId=1508400 into http://www.peninsulashops.com/bensautotech or http://www.peninsulashops.com/Content/Members/bensautotech.

This would greatly help with search engine indexing and site mapping.

 

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Enjoy. Local. Livelihood.

www.peninsulashops.com

Currently:
All member profiles (public or member-only) have their own URL. However, it's a long URL and not very friendly looking.

Desried
At present we have a way to create a custom URL for individual pages on the site. This functionality could be offered to Member profiles. Any time a member has selected to show their profile, give them a field where they can enter a custom URL for their page. This functionality would also exist on the Contact card, under the Privacy settings for the member.

So, for example, lets say I have a site http://www.usefulapricot.com, as a member I could create my custom URL to be http://www.usefulapricot.com/gvalentino. People who enter that URL on their own browsers would be taken directly to my profile.

Note:

• Names would be unique - if someone entered a name that was already taken, they would have to choose a new one.
• If the member's profile is member only, anyone clicking on the URL will have to enter their login credentials before going to the profile
  

 

Additionally, you could set up a type of mask to automatically generate the custom field name: For example, all membership profile could be set so that it generates it from the fields "organization-firstname -lastname"

We would like to see this, too.  Generally we use mod_rewrite on other CMSes to accomplish it (though I certainly don't mean to oversimplify matters).

In addition we would also like to specify custom page titles for SEO.  All of our members want to be not only indexed, but indexed well :) !

Our admins would greatly appreciate fields to add custom URLs and page titles to member profile pages.  This, in addition to the presence of an xml site map for bots to crawl, would greatly improve potential for member pages SEO and visibility in SERPs. 

Currently the page title is identical for all members and the query string in a member's profile URL has no human readability for identifying a member by name.  Human readable taxonomy in page titles and URLs is critical in this day and age.  SEO, today, is much more than building a network of links across the internet.

We moved our site to Wild Apricot several months ago. One of the draws was improved member management, but one of the expectations was improved search engine indexing of member lists (by state) and individual member pages, as our association competes with others nationally. We are still not seeing member lists or pages show up in search results, and it is a huge disappointment. Members are complaining they are not getting their money's worth with this service.

What can we do short term to improve search engine indexing, and what is Wild Apricot planning for the longer term?

http://www.personalchefscooperative.com

We have a dedicated thread on Search Engine Optimization of Member Directory (and this members profile) - http://community.wildapricot.com/19013/ShowThread.aspx. I would appreciate your posts there on that topic. 

The problem is that the way directory is implemented does not allow search crawlers to index it and thus to make it available in search engines. This is in our radar but we have no exact dates when it's going to be implemented. 

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Evgeny
Product Design Team