Stop pasting v.footbag.org/media links!

webmaster · Post by **webmaster** » 28 Jun 2006 11:26

Folks,

I see everyone posting direct links to the video media on v.footbag.org on your forum posts. This is really bad for a couple of reasons.

First, and most importantly, these links are not "permalinks". That is to say, they may very well change. IFPA, footbag.org, and I want to have the flexibility to move files around as we start getting more mirrors and/or as we deal with disk capacity issues in various places. You guys linking directly to the videos means that eventually someone will get a 404 not-found error and will have no idea how to find the new location of the same video.

Second, the "landing page" for a video comes complete with a title, caption, and credits for the video. This is sometimes very useful -- especially if someone sees a video that they want to highlight on a popular site, and then they are linking directly to it with no context. In that sense, the footbag community (that's all of you folks) is just throwing away an opportunity to get people to join the community and to see what we're up to. (A direct link to a vid does not have any links out of it, obviously.)

Third, for both reasons above, web search engines (like Google) use what's called "reference-counting" to see how many different people link to the same page on the web, as part of the determination of where it should appear in search results. If everyone's linking to the .avi or .mpg or whatever file, then the HTML landing page for the video (that has all the links off it to other relevant areas of footbag.org or whatever service they're located on) will be an island with very few links into it. We want to boost links into pages that are relevant. Most search engines either ignore media files (.avi etc.) or they only show them in the media-specific search. In either case, there's really nothing to say about a file when all you know is its filename (which sometimes is an ugly string of letters and numbers). Wouldn't it be better all around if we built a web of videos with some context, i.e., titles, captions, authors, links to other related pages (next, previous video in gallery, etc.)?

Please folks, for your own good and mine, stop pasting direct links to videos on this forum. Instead, paste the link of the containing page on the gallery -- e.g., instead of http://v.footbag.org/media/30293/B_554.mov please post a link like http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/94889.

Both links above are examples and will not work.

Thanks.

Steve Goldberg

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 28 Jun 2006 12:24

Good points Steve. This is important enough to be a Sticky, but I think it will get more views if the mods just leave it as a regular thread for a while, and then sticky it or add it to the video resources topic later. For now, I may periodically bump this, but please keep Steve's point in mind when posting videos.

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 29 Jun 2006 07:37

Thanks for that explanation Steve, I always thought it was a pretty ass thing to do posting direct links to media that is on footbag.org but I never though of those other things you pointed out, all the more reason to link to the video landing page now!

max · Post by **max** » 29 Jun 2006 08:38

Well I've been guilty of direct video link posting.
I'll keep this in mind and just post to the container page from now on.

RawSko · Post by **RawSko** » 30 Jun 2006 10:57

^^same

mikeanello · Post by **mikeanello** » 04 Jul 2006 07:43

I too am guilty of posting direct links. From now on I will post to the video's preview page on footbag.org.

Thanks Steve for the clarity.

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 10 Aug 2006 14:21

bump

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 10 Aug 2006 19:07

Thanks for finding this Nate, I was looking earlier and couldn't.

Listen to Steve people!

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 10 Aug 2006 20:27

I was also trying to find this thread!

Steve, One thing about the media pages at footbag.org is that they cause my browser (opera) to have some illegal operation and close when I try to close the page! I can post a screenshot if you want of what it looks like and the error message, but it's really annoying having to close my browser and all my pages to get the direct link to the video!

I know i'm not the only one having this problem, do you know anything about it steve?

max · Post by **max** » 10 Aug 2006 22:18

BalinorNZ wrote:I was also trying to find this thread!

Steve, One thing about the media pages at footbag.org is that they cause my browser (opera) to have some illegal operation and close when I try to close the page! I can post a screenshot if you want of what it looks like and the error message, but it's really annoying having to close my browser and all my pages to get the direct link to the video!

I know i'm not the only one having this problem, do you know anything about it steve?

you should post this on .org

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 10 Aug 2006 23:39

BalinorNZ wrote:I was also trying to find this thread!

I've got a good eye... and butt loads of free time

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 31 Aug 2007 10:55

bump...