#39 Add "latest" version choice in URL schema to create permalink for a document and help SEO
Opened 5 years ago by jflory7. Modified 5 years ago

Summary

In URL schema that contains a version number (e.g. Fedora release documentation), add a keyword like "latest" to replace version number and always link to the "current" edition of a doc

Background

This issue only affects parts of our documentation where you use a version number, like this page:

docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/f28/system-administrators-guide/monitoring-and-automation/System_Monitoring_Tools/

Wherever this link is shared, posted, or sent, it will always be tied to a specific edition of Fedora. Since Fedora is fast-moving at around six months, these links will become irrelevant in a short time. As a user, it can be frustrating because I feel like documentation should assume the user is using the latest supported software and adjust it manually if not.

I've found better success for SEO to have a "preferred" URL to promote versus dynamic URLs that change over time. For six months, a search engine like Google learns where the /f28/ document is, but we update to /f29/ and the search engine has to relearn the new URL. Having a "most preferred" URL is helpful for our up-to-date documentation remaining visible in search engines (so not to equally weigh different versions of identical content at the same time).

Details

I'm sure this lies somewhere in the Antora pipeline, but I'm not sure on implementation ideas.

Outcome

Better user experience to easily find most up-to-date content, better shelf-life for URLs spread around the Internet (linked on forums, mailing lists, chat support groups, etc.) better visibility of our latest content in search engines


Yeah great idea!

Do you think a redirect would work? Other option could be having the same content under latest and let's say f29 which doesn't sound right to me.

I think a redirect is the right idea. I also think it will solve some of @sgallagh 's needs for the SWID thing - especially if we can make the redirect do language selection correctly.

I believe for the redirect to be long-term viable we need to make sure it is put on the Release checklist for infra as they will have to adjust it.

Do you think a redirect would work?

I'm not sure. I don't think this offers the same SEO benefits since search engines assume the redirected URL (i.e. /f29/) is the correct one (I need to verify this for accuracy). A redirect does solve the user experience issue, but I still think the search engines will still pick up stale content.

Other option could be having the same content under latest and let's say f29 which doesn't sound right to me.

For what it's worth, this is how ReadTheDocs does it. The default URL schema is use latest, but you can "lock" the documentation to a specific version by choosing it in the left-sidebar. This makes it easy to find version-specific information when needed. Otherwise, assume the user is looking for the latest version of content, so users discovering the docs from search engines will have the same positive experience of finding up-to-date documentation.

I'm vaguely remembering a conversation with an SEO person at Red Hat about this and I think his advice was to publish the content twice. @asamalik is this something you would have a cycle to follow up on? I'll also ping them and see if they would be able to do a presentation to us.

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