On a related note, consider the impact this has on search engines and other robots.
The suggestion to use http://db.apache.org/axion as the normative URL, and use an .htaccess based redirect to point those URLs to http://incubator.apache.org/ creates a fairly subtle difference to the human reader, but the difference to search engines is significant, in at least two ways: 1) Search engines will consider the two URLs to be different sites, even if they serve the same content. This will penalize the project on engines that rely upon link-based rankings. Moreover, many engines penalize redirects, especially "homepage" redirects, creating ongoing issues for the project's search rankings. 2) When a user creates a link to Axion, they are virtually guaranteed to grab a (temporary) incubator.apache.org url, whether by copying the url from the "location" bar, or by meta-clicking on an internal link. This further diminishes the project's pagerank. If the goal is to make it clear that a project is currently incubating, it's not clear to me why we believe that something relatively subtle to a human reader, like the change from "db" to "incubator" in the location bar, to be a sufficient indication of the project's incubation status, while something glaring, like a notice on top of every page, to be an insufficient one. The current approach seems fairly subtle to human eyes, and introduces a number of undesirable emergent effects. On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Rodney Waldhoff wrote: > Allow me to expound upon one of the issues this raises just a little > bit, to help you see where this concern is coming from. > > The Apache DB project has a single, unified site build: a single > (Maven/Reactor) process builds both the top level web site and the sites > of the three existing subprojects. Many of the top level pages pull in > data from the sub-project pages to present a comprehensive view of the > project. > > As a DB subproject, Axion should be integrated with this process. While > this isn't an enormously difficult task, there is a bit of configuration > and integration to make it all happen. Hosting the Axion site under > incubator.apache.org means that Axion will need to set up a different > site generation and publication process than the one it will use once it > is part of the DB project. These processes will need to be > replaced/reworked once Axion is promoted. This creates a significant > amount of unnecessary work for the development team. Similarly, > navigation of the Axion site will be different when integrated with the > rest of the Apache DB site. > > If one of the functions of incubation is to help a project "settle in" > to its new home, hosting Axion's web site at > http://incubator.apache.org/ is contrary to this goal--it creates work > that will have to be undone once the project has graduated. > > On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Rodney Waldhoff wrote: > > > On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Noel J. Bergman wrote: > > > > > Ceki Gülcü wrote: > > > > Rodney Waldhoff wrote: > > > > > My concern isn't the difficulty of copying files from one directory to > > > > > another. It is pointing an exisiting user, developer and google-bot > > > > > community from http://axion.tigris.org, then to > > > > > http://incubator.apache.org/axion, then to http://db.apache.org/axion, > > > > > all in a matter of weeks. What does all this disruption buy for us? > > > > > > > I am also worried about the point raised by Rodney. > > > > > > There should be no need to "point" people at anything. Asking around, I am > > > told that the problem with tigris is simply that their system does not > > > support adding redirects. That is not the case here. So, unfortunately in > > > the case of axion, you do have to tell them to come to Apache, but we can > > > handle it transparently once here. > > > > I understand the way .htaccess works. I would still suggest this isn't > > quite "transparent". As evidence of this, I'll note that despite how > > technically easy it is to "automatically" make this move, it has not been > > done for the 5 or more projects currently hosted at their "destination" > > URL. > > > > > > > > Personally, I do not have a problem if you chose to publish > > > db.apache.org/axion. as the normative URL for people. Then in > > > /www/db.apache.org/.htaccess, added: > > > > > > Redirect Permanent /axion http://incubator.apache.org/axion > > > > > > People visiting the normal location would be automatically relocated to the > > > URL within the Incubator (thus satisfying the request that we make the > > > projects's status clear) for the duration of Incubation, however long or > > > short a period. > > > > > > When the project promoted, you would remove it, and we'd add: > > > > > > Redirect Permanent /axion http://db.apache.org/axion > > > > > > for anyone who had bookmarked the incubation site. Thus we would continue > > > to provide transparency and automation. > > > > > > --- Noel > > > > > > > - Rod <http://radio.weblogs.com/0122027/> > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > -- - Rod <http://radio.weblogs.com/0122027/> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
