Topic on Project:Support desk

Redirect in the Main Page of MediaWiki website - bad for SEO?

3
Summary by Biologically

Ways to prevent redirect in MediaWiki Main Page - if interested.

Biologically (talkcontribs)

In MediaWiki websites, when you search by using the domain name in address bar of browsers, it always uses a redirect to reach the Main Page.

For example, when you search for - https://en.wikipedia.org/ it redirects you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page .

The same is true for MediaWiki official website too which redirects to "https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki"

Is there any way to circumvent this redirection, as redirection is bad for SEO.

Bawolff (talkcontribs)

SEO is a black art, mostly full of myths that aren't true. I'm doubtful that (HTTP) redirection is actually bad for SEO.

That said its probably possible to a hack something together using apache redirect rules so Mediawiki sees the right page but you don't actually get redirected there.

Biologically (talkcontribs)

I agree with the "black art" comment.

I shall try your suggestion with the .htaccess.

Keeping the thread open for a while, to see if anyone else wants to drop any other idea.