Improve the public utility of exodus by improving its SEO

[treyssatvincent]

I think that the project would have a greater impact with a better SEO.

For example, by improving the SEO of reports, a user of an application could more easily find the report without knowing exodus-privacy project.

• A dynamic title tag (for example, applications names on the reports pages name of the app - εxodus)
• Open Graph tags (#59)

If you have any others ideas we could talk about it here.

[codeurimpulsif]

It's a good idea and I think we can speak about this on the issue #59 too :)

[pnu-s]

I think the dynamic title tag is an easy thing to do.

I'm not sure whether we should use the application handle or the application name, which can be long. Is there any rule about title tag length? Should we also add the report ID? Otherwise we would have multiple page with the same title tag (all reports for the same application).

I can make the change easily once we settled on these topics :).

For instance, what title tag do we want for the following page:

• https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/search/com.spotify.music/
• https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/88429/

[treyssatvincent]

I'm not sure whether we should use the application handle or the application name

I'm not sure to understand these terms, if application handle mean the machine-friendly name (com.spotify.music for example) and application name the human-friendly name, definitely the application name.

Is there any rule about title tag length?

Not that I'm aware of, but after a certain length it's ignored by engine search front-end (and probably index.

Should we also add the report ID?

I think that the app version would make more sense.

[pnu-s]

I'm not sure to understand these terms, if application handle mean the machine-friendly name (com.spotify.music for example) and application name the human-friendly name, definitely the application name.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit, but you guessed it right :).

So if I understand correctly what you are proposing, it would be something like the following:

1. For the list of reports: Reports - <app handle> - εxodus example: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/search/com.spotify.music/ Reports - com.spotify.music - εxodus

2. For a specific report: Report - <app name> - <app version> - εxodus example: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/88429/ Report - Spotify: Free Music and Podcasts Streaming - 8.5.17.676 - εxodus

Note that we cannot really use the application human-friendly name for 1 because it is not fixed for a given application (it can change depending on the version like for com.spotify.music or be language specific like for fr.meteo).

We could easily add title tags to other pages such as trackers.

WDYT?

[treyssatvincent]

Note that we cannot really use the application human-friendly name for 1 because it is not fixed for a given application.

Sure, and it's a convenient way to differentiate the two pages.

Your suggestions seems good !

Maybe consider a more verbose version such as : <app handle> reports archive - εxodus example : com.spotify.music reports archive - εxodus

and

Report for <app name> <app version> - εxodus example : Report for Spotify: Free Music and Podcasts Streaming 8.5.17.676 - εxodus

Also, adding "privacy" after εxodus in the title tags may help to associate the pages with search engine requests such as <app name> privacy and help someone who's not aware of εxodus-privacy to find a report.

But εxodus been the name of the software and εxodus-privacy the name of the association, it may be a deliberate choice to not mix them.

[pnu-s]

But εxodus been the name of the software and εxodus-privacy the name of the association, it may be a deliberate choice to not mix them.

You're right, "εxodus" is the name of the platform and "Exodus Privacy" of the association, so I think it is better not to add a confusing "privacy" in the title tag. Maybe we could call it a Privacy report, but tbh I'm not entirely sure we want to do this.

I am personally not a bit fan of the reports archive name, I would prefer something like reports list (if reports alone is not sufficient).

So finally, we could have the following: <app handle> reports list - εxodus OR Reports list for <app handle> list - εxodus example: com.spotify.music reports list - εxodus OR Reports list for com.spotify.music - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/com.spotify.music/

Report for <app name> <app version> - εxodus example: Report for Spotify: Free Music and Podcasts Streaming 8.5.17.676 - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/88429/

Home - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

Reports - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/

Applications - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/apps/

Trackers - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/trackers/

Tracker profile for <tracker name> - εxodus example: Tracker profile for AccountKit - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/trackers/91/

Statistics - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/trackers/stats/

New analysis - εxodus https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/analysis/submit/

Additionally:

• using simply εxodus by default if no title tag is provided
• using French translations when browsing εxodus in French
• I think we should use the occasion to add a favicon

If that suits everyone, I'll have time to implement this in 2 weeks. Any comments and feedbacks are obviously welcomed :). (cc @U039b @MeTaLPoU @Gu1nness @jfoucry @codeurimpulsif @Porkepix if you want to step in and give your opinion)

[Porkepix]

I think the dynamic title tag is an easy thing to do.

I'm not sure whether we should use the application handle or the application name, which can be long. Is there any rule about title tag length? Should we also add the report ID? Otherwise we would have multiple page with the same title tag (all reports for the same application).

I can make the change easily once we settled on these topics :).

For instance, what title tag do we want for the following page:

* https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/search/com.spotify.music/

* https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/fr/reports/88429/

To avoid the mess you're talking about, if the objective is SEO I think the best way to go would be to create a new endpoint page with this kind of format: /report/application_handle/latest, /application_handle/reports/latest or most_recent rather than latest, something like that, and only do this SEO improvement for this (changing) report page which will always contain the most recent one.

On a pure SEO standpoint, I believe multiplying reports page will always favor one of the oldest as it's probably going to be one of the most linked.

Note that we cannot really use the application human-friendly name for 1 because it is not fixed for a given application (it can change depending on the version like for com.spotify.music or be language specific like for fr.meteo).

I think you're not clear here. I read that application handle can change, and as far as I remember it's definitively fixed. Some application developers had to create a new one in order to change this.

[pnu-s]

I think you're not clear here. I read that application handle can change, and as far as I remember it's definitively fixed. Some application developers had to create a new one in order to change this.

What I meant is that the application name is not fixed for a given application handle, as you can see in the examples of Spotify and Meteo France.

Tbh I don't know much about SEO, I think adding titles make sense even for the user experience. Adding a new page /report/application_handle/latest is interesting (would be great for several reasons) but I think it can be discussed separately.

[Porkepix]

Actually, I even think for an SEO standpoint it would be better to "hide" version-specific reports from search engine and only have latest one. Current state shows how this can be a mess: it can be hard to get reports from search engine and when you do it can either an old report, or several reports with the user ending up not knowing which link to pick:

EDIT: And this big EU.org is… well, I don't understand what does it do here /o\

EDIT 2: I don't know why is there this dash in the name either, I don't think the application once installed have this dash in the name.

[treyssatvincent]

The /report/application_handle/latest page make sense and would solve the nearly duplicates title tags on each versions.

For SEO I think it would make sense to do something like <app name> privacy report - εxodus on this latest page.

And it would allow the reports pages to have something less SEO-friendly such as <app handle> <app version> - εxodus

But I don't know neither εxodus's code or django, so I'll leave it to you to discuss it.

this big EU.org

It's probably google poorly trying to guess a "site name" and using only the end of the domain name

[pnu-s]

The main issue with this is that an application can have multiple names, depending on various factors. Which name should we display then?

We could simply take the latest, but if we check Météo-France for instance, its latest name in exodus is My Weather App (see https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/78640/), which may cause some issues.

Actually, I even think for an SEO standpoint it would be better to "hide" version-specific reports from search engine and only have latest one.

@Porkepix How do you suggest we do that?

[Porkepix]

The main issue with this is that an application can have multiple names, depending on various factors. Which name should we display then?

We could simply take the latest, but if we check Météo-France for instance, its latest name in exodus is My Weather App (see https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/78640/), which may cause some issues.

Can this be related to localization? Applications can have a localized name, changing depending on OS locale. Exodus needs to manage it (it might already be the case, I'm not sure), and if it's already tackled, I don't know what has been done for reports from before the change. Is there something else than locale than can affect application name?

Actually, I even think for an SEO standpoint it would be better to "hide" version-specific reports from search engine and only have latest one.

@Porkepix How do you suggest we do that?

I have in mind through robots.txt but there might be better solution, the idea being that you have version-specific pages and one getting information from latest version including version number but with a template discarding it from title and other places.

[pnu-s]

Can this be related to localization? Applications can have a localized name, changing depending on OS locale. Exodus needs to manage it (it might already be the case, I'm not sure), and if it's already tackled, I don't know what has been done for reports from before the change. Is there something else than locale than can affect application name?

εxodus doesn't manage this, so that answers your question :D. The other thing I see is that the name of an application can change over time, but for this I don't see any reason not to use the latest.

I have in mind through robots.txt but there might be better solution, the idea being that you have version-specific pages and one getting information from latest version including version number but with a template discarding it from title and other places.

No idea how to do that tbh :).

[Porkepix]

Can this be related to localization? Applications can have a localized name, changing depending on OS locale. Exodus needs to manage it (it might already be the case, I'm not sure), and if it's already tackled, I don't know what has been done for reports from before the change. Is there something else than locale than can affect application name?

εxodus doesn't manage this, so that answers your question :D. The other thing I see is that the name of an application can change over time, but for this I don't see any reason not to use the latest.

Oh? I thought localized names were already used. Well, I guess that's yet another issue to open (or find if it already does exist).

EDIT: Okay, well, I actually already opened this one some times ago… https://github.com/Exodus-Privacy/exodus/issues/170

I have in mind through robots.txt but there might be better solution, the idea being that you have version-specific pages and one getting information from latest version including version number but with a template discarding it from title and other places.

No idea how to do that tbh :).

I don't know enough about robots.txt syntax to be sure of it, it can also be a Varnish or Nginx conf I guess it's possible to target some URL format and then treat those differently.