Gudlyf's World

Custom short URLs and Wordpress SEO stuff

2009-05-20T18:00:01Z

If you use Twitter, chances are you’ve seen or have submitted URLs using short URL services like tinyurl.com or bit.ly. Because of the limited number of characters allowed in Twitter tweets, you simply have to use them to get your point accross. The problem with using these public services is that, to most people they have no clue really where the link is going to take them. Because of this, some places have started using their own short URLs; when you see the custom short URL, you know where you’re headed.

So, I wanted to have our own short URL domain for CliqueClack. Domains are cheap, but only if you use one of the primary top-level domains (.com, .net, .us …). If you try to use domai.nr to find domains, it will even search country-specific domains, many of which can cost hundreds of dollars to register, if you’re allowed to at all! While I would have loved to have cla.ck for our short domain, apparently the Cook Islands are picky with what you do with their domains. So, we settled with clak.us — it’s cheap and it makes sense: Clack Us!

Now, how to translate these short URLs to the posts on our sites. We could spend $100/yr. using awe.sm to do the routing for us, but I thought we could do this on our own. And I was right.

We use Wordpress over on CliqueClack, and with at least WP, each post has an ID #. You could access the posts with the ID number rather than the permalink/slug URL (http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/?p=12345), for example. The post IDs can increase pretty quickly when you’re posting as often as we do and, on top of that, all of the revisions of each post. For example, on CCTV we’re somewhere around ID #21382, but we only have just short of 2000 posts!

So, we can’t realistically access the posts in our short URL domain using the ID # of the post. It could get pretty long, pretty quickly. We could try making random strings for each post and write a plugin that does all of that, puts new entries into the database, etc., but then we’d have to go back through all the old posts too. Plus, it should be easier than that when each post has a unique ID #.

What I decided to do was use the PHP functions hexdec() and dechex() to shorten the post ID to something quite a bit smaller. For example, even if I hit an eight-digit ID like 10000000, in hex that’s 989680 — so I dropped off two characters there. For something more realistic for us, like a six-digit ID, that brings you down to five characters. http://clak.us/89680. Perfectly acceptable.

However, we’re currently not using WPMU, so we’ve got two blogs that I’d like clak.us to direct to using IDs. But how to translate non-unique IDs to the appropriate blog? Sloppy but works: I tack on the first character of the blog: “t” for TV, “f” for Food. So, with above: http://clak.us/t89680. Still not bad, and we’re not even close to six-digit IDs yet anyway.

Here’s the simple redirect script I use:

<?php

$clakus_log = "/path/to/clakus.txt";

$path = $_GET['id'];

$blog = "none";

$pre = substr( $path, 0, 1 );
$num = substr( $path, 1 );

switch ($pre) {

 case "t":
 $blog = "tv";
 break;
 case "f":
 $blog = "food";
 break;

}

$hexdec = hexdec( $num );

if( $blog == "none" ) {
 $realpage = "http://www.cliqueclack.com/";
} else {
 $log = fopen( $clakus_log, 'a' );
 $rightnow = date("D M j G:i:s T Y");

 $text = $rightnow . " - " . $blog . " - " . $hexdec . " - ";
 $text .= $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] . "\n";
 fwrite( $log, $text );
 fclose( $log );
 $realpage = "http://www.cliqueclack.com/" . $blog . "/?p=" . $hexdec;
}

header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header('Location: ' . $realpage);

?>

To get clak.us traffic to route through that script, I have a .htaccess for its landing directory:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} clak.us
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.cliqueclack.com/clakus.php?id=$1 [R=301,L]

“clak.us.php” is the name of the page I gave you the code to above. Simple. Works. The only thing I’d like to work on soon is better logging of how the URLs are being used and who’s clicking on them. Right now the info goes to a simple text file I can check once in a while, which is fine for my needs for now.

One change I may make is directly accessing the database to pull the real permalink rather than access via the p=ID method, which would cut down on a redirect. Speaking of…

Lastly, I (so far) highly recommend getting the Permalink Redirect plugin for Wordpress to help your SEO/Google juice. Otherwise, if you do what I did above, your redirects will show up as ‘302′ redirects, which apparently Google doesn’t like and will consider your new tiny URLs to be duplicate content, should it crawl it when it’s linked from elsewhere.

UPDATE: Glad I thought of this sooner than later. You can actually make much smaller codes than using hexdec/dechex by instead using PHP’s base_convert() function. I just use a conversion of base10 (decimal, the post ID) to base36. Makes for even shorter codes! By the way, to get the codes to use for each post, just write a simple plugin to convert the ID of the post to base36 and place that URL in the post edit list (I placed mind right under the post status). If anyone needs it, I can publish how I did that.

Ode to the bog dog

2009-05-08T18:50:19Z

I’ll miss you buddy.

Support your library or the Amazon Kindle?

2009-03-04T14:30:17Z

I have my moments of being a gadget geek … oh hell, I’m always a gadget geek, though the current economy hits this brand of geek pretty hard. Recently Amazon put out its upgraded Kindle product, Kindle 2, which I’d been eying since it was hinted at a while back. The Kindle 2 is an eBook reader — essentially, you can read just about any book you want on it without killing trees. Also, in case you’ve never seen it before, the display is nothing like a laptop or PDA screen — it actually has a a matte finish and eerily looks like you’re reading a piece of paper on an electronic device.

I tend to get my reading material these days via the local library, which is a plus because a) it’s free and b) it’s not contributing to another dead tree (do I sound like a smelly hippy yet?) The Kindle books cost money, but once you read the book there, that’s it — you can’t really share it or donate it to a library. However, you are saving trees.

That’s what I’m wondering here: is it better to not contribute to more paper products by using eBooks, or buying paper books so you have something to share with others, including libraries? This is sort-of the same issue I have with downloadable movies to own. If I have it on my hard drive in a format that’s not legal to burn to a DVD, I can’t share it with others or sell it later if I’m strapped for cash. Now that I think about it, it could mean the end of book/DVD/CD collectibles as we know it.

When the Kindle can allow renting or borrowing books for a limited time from libraries, then I’ll look into it a lot more seriously. Until then, I just won’t read — it’s overrated anyway.

Gizmodo has more on the Amazon Kindle issue with intellectual property that’s an interesting read and food for thought, if you’re considering purchasing a Kindle.

The kitchen’s open at CliqueClack Food

2009-03-04T14:30:54Z

We’ve had CliqueClack TV running since sometime in September of 2008, going “officially” live on October 1. Since then things have been going great, but we wanted to open the doors a little wider for our writers, allowing them yet another space to express themselves. Everybody’s gotta eat, and we’ve got a lot of foodies on our hands, so a site based on food seemed the most logical next step. And, there you have it — CliqueClack Food is here.

We’d been working on CCFood for a couple of months now, and we thought Valentine’s Day (or at least the week before) was the best time to make people more aware of it. I think everyone will find something interesting, fun and delicious to read about there. Please spread the word, post comments and visit often! And if you’re interested in submitting a guest writer piece, please visit the About page to learn more.

I’m extremely proud of the team of writers behind these sites, most importantly my incredible wife Deb. Everyone puts an incredible amount of time, effort and creativity into CliqueClack, and it shows.

I’ve got grand plans for CliqueClack, though every single one of them requires something I have a short supply of lately: time. I have the technical know-how to do it all, but it’s a daunting task to do alone. Then again, I tend to over-exaggerate these things to myself and find that, hey, I do have the time to do and and — voila! — it’s done. Time — or lack thereof — will tell.

And that, grasshopper, is the key to it all

2009-02-10T17:20:49Z

Master: “Grasshopper, when is the best time to plant a tree?”
Grasshopper: “I don’t know master. When is it?”
Master: “20 years ago. That way you will enjoy the shade today.”
Grasshopper: “But I cannot travel in time, master.”
Master: “True. Therefore the next best answer is: Today.”

That’s Darth Patches to you!

2009-01-13T20:23:16Z

Star Wars Halloween sometime in the ’80s - originally uploaded by corelliancaptain.

[via Wil Wheaton]

Wordpress Plugin: Pending Posts Indicator

2009-01-06T15:45:07Z

Another very simple but handy plugin for Wordpress. This one simply adds one of those neat bubbles next to the ‘Posts’ admin menu item with a number of posts in the Pending queue, if there are any. This is the same sort of bubble you see when there are comments in the moderation queue or plugins needing updating.

Works in Wordpress 2.7 and above only. You can grab it here.

Wordpress Plugin: Show Post Busy Status

2008-12-21T14:27:45Z

Since starting the new CliqueClack blog, I’ve had to deal with multiple authors and multiple editors working within the admin interface. One annoying thing that I’ve come across is entering a ‘Pending Review’ post, only to see someone already editing it.

So, I wrote this simple plugin that adds a new column to the post management list. The column reads “Busy?” and will show nothing under it unless someone is editing the post. If someone is editing the post, it will display a red “Yes” as a hyperlink that, when hovered over, will show you the name of the person editing the post. Note that clicking the link should simply keep you within the same screen, and the busy status will only update if you reload the page.

I’ll get around to submitting this plugin to the proper places, but for now you can grab it here.

Comments from the Squad: #5

2008-09-12T02:42:45Z

Another comment from the ‘Squad mailbag:

Name: mighty
URL:
Subject: partnership

hi, i am a Nigerian and want to be your correspondent, even as i want to bring out a show on environmental issues in the country. i am an environmental technologist and feel ignorance and lack of information, coped with non-enforcement is a deter to my country.
i know your office can help me fulfil this dream.

Sure thing, mighty! Should we also wire $10,000 to your bank account too?

Comments from the Squad: #4

2008-09-09T15:28:28Z

From this morning’s mail comes this gem. Note that I do not correct or edit these in any way other than changing names, occasionally, to protect the guilty:

Name: patsy
URL:
Subject: 1974 camaro

WELL IM KINDA NEW AT ALL OF THIS TO START OFF …

MY NAME IS PATSY AND I HAVE A HUSBAND THAT HAS BEEN WORKIN ON HIS CAR SENCE HE WAS 15. IT IS A 1974 CAMARO AND ITS OUR DREAM CAR! WE HAVE GOT SOME THINGS FORÂ BETSY (MOTER/ PARTS AND LITTLE NICK NACKS) BUT WE WERE UNABLE TO COME UP WITH THE MONEY FOR THE REST SO FAR. IM NOT SURE HOW YALL WORKÂ OR DO THINGS BUT I WAS VERY INTRUSTIED IN FINDING OUT!! I WANT THIS TO BE A SUPRISE FOR MY HUSBAND, I WOULD LIKE IT IF YOU COULD CONTACT ME AND LET ME KNOW WHAT IT IS YALL DO AND HOW YALL DO IT. IVE ALSO GOT SOME PICTURES THAT I COULD SEND YOU IF YOU WOULD LIKE, THANK YOU FOR YOU TIME! HOPE TO SEE OR TALK TO YALL SOON.

I remember when a Camaro was my dream car. It was when I was carless, penniless and in high school.