Attentive readers will notice something different about my blog today: Structural URL archives. Was dat, you say? Previously, my archives defaulted to the format “/life/archives/000066.php” (I’m not going to remove these files from my server since there are many search engine and self-pointing links to these individual archives, so this style link format will continue to work — and hey, I did tout them as “permalinks,” after all). But as of today, all archives (past, present, and future) will take the form “/life/2003/05/20/beer_books.php.” What difference does it make, you ask? Good question.
Firstly, I’ve been wanting to do that for quite some time since it’s more intuitive and just makes sense; it’s a better, less cluttered system of organization, I think, and is future-thinking (I just didn’t future-think back when I first set up my blog, or I would’ve done it then). Secondly, it should give my blog content higher precedence in search results if the URL associated with each entry actually reflects the content of that entry. Thirdly, programmers like Dave Winer will begin to release powerful, Google-based Weblog search tools that leverage the intelligent, date-sensitive archive structure of blogs that are organized correctly. (Yes, I might go so far as to argue that my previous method of archiving was incorrect and that I have now converted to the correct method of archiving — at least in the world of blogs where our tools enable this automated process…of course, were I to extend that thinking to the rest of my site’s content (/index.php?id=58), I’d be srewed; but hey, at least I use “marketing redirects” (/about) for all the content areas of my site.) Lastly, it just looks better and conveys meaning; you will know what this story is about before even clicking on the link:
nslog.com/archives/2003/03/13/starting_a_blog_with_movabletype.php
Make sense? I feel more organized already.
