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Posterous and URLs

mtrichardson.com

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: Posterous and URLs

#11
post #6

This is one of those "mom do I haaaaave to????" pieces of functionality that engineers (I say this as an engineer-type) hate. I would procrastinate for weeks before implementing something like this. It's boring, complex, and affects a tiny minority of users. However to engineers like me, we have to remember that even though the number of end-users might be small, in this case they are inherently more valuable than th…

As an engineer, I don't think preserving URLs is a minor issue.

He never said it was. He said that it affects a small number of users (because most of Posterous users are starting fresh, not moving from a blog that they actually care about) and that it's complex.

Re: Posterous and URLs

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google actually wants you to add a unique number to the URLs." I think you're mistaken.

I think that used to be a requirement for Google News inclusion, but I heard they dropped it.

Interesting, you're correct:

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-news-no-longer-requires-st...

Re: Posterous and URLs

#13
That would be really interesting if Tumblr and other sites create a posterous importer and everyone is a good 302 redirect citizen. Then you could switch to any service at any point, seamlessly.

Re: Posterous and URLs

#14
1. I hope we add this soon

2. I'm going to take my chances among the HN community and say: I think this is low priority because

i. Most other services don't even offer import. Posterous offers import from (soon to be) 15+ services. this is not easy

ii. Posterous supports all different post/media types so that we can import from so many different services. We put our focus here

iii. I care about sharing with my family and friends. They don't care about permanent URLs as much as being able to find my site and search for what they want. cc/google

If you are a pro blogger (and maybe you are), and you have major google juice on some URLs, then yes, maybe you care about this. But most people aren't, and don't.

There are many reasons why someone should or shouldn't move between competing services on the internet. But urls seems like a very small reason to make that decision. Future services (Posterous or maybe others!) might offer super compelling reasons to move.

Not moving because of urls seems like not switching to a Mac because you have all the Windows keyboard shortcuts memorized.

In my lifetime, I expect to move between blogging platforms, phone providers, desktop OSs. I will buy different brands of cars, live in different neighborhoods, probably even switch email providers.

Yes, there are switching costs. But we hope to minimize them. And more importantly, we hope to focus on adding awesome features so you are willing to incur that switching cost.

Re: Posterous and URLs

#15

1. I hope we add this soon 2. I'm going to take my chances among the HN community and say: I think this is low priority because i. Most other services don't even offer import. Posterous offers import from (soon to be) 15+ services. this is not easy ii. Posterous supports all different post/media types so that we can import from so many different services. We put our focus here iii. I care about sharing with my family…

Just support moving the URLs. Not that big of a deal.

Posted from my MacBook

Re: Posterous and URLs

#16

1. I hope we add this soon 2. I'm going to take my chances among the HN community and say: I think this is low priority because i. Most other services don't even offer import. Posterous offers import from (soon to be) 15+ services. this is not easy ii. Posterous supports all different post/media types so that we can import from so many different services. We put our focus here iii. I care about sharing with my family…

> Not moving because of urls seems like not switching to a Mac because you have all the Windows keyboard shortcuts memorized.

In the spirit of the recent "raw unsolicited advice" to Posterous trend, here are my thoughts: I was impressed when you guys responded saying you were going to add this feature soon. However, playing it down with car, phone, and operating system analogies feels sort of patronizing and makes me worry that you guys might not understand the full scope of the issue:

a) You will lose all of your page rank

b) Anyone who has linked to you (including yourself) will have a broken link

Sure, for some number of users this doesn't matter. For the people who care about it, it is, by definition, very important. What's the point of trying to play down their concern?

Re: Posterous and URLs

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineer, I don't think preserving URLs is a minor issue.

He never said it was. He said that it affects a small number of users (because most of Posterous users are starting fresh, not moving from a blog that they actually care about) and that it's complex.

> most of Posterous users are starting fresh

Posterous heavily promotes migrating your blog from other services.

Re: Posterous and URLs

#18
post #13

That would be really interesting if Tumblr and other sites create a posterous importer and everyone is a good 302 redirect citizen. Then you could switch to any service at any point, seamlessly.

It's called DNS.

Re: Posterous and URLs

#19
Just setup htaccess on your original server to redirect to the new URLs. If you care so much about google juice, then you can spend a day doing this, instead of requiring posterous to solve the problem for you.
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