matrix-org / matrix-org/matrix-spec

SEO for MSCs

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#947 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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aesthetic meta
Dominant language
HTML
Stars
330
Forks
150
Avg merge
2h 21m
Merged PRs (30d)
3

Description

In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4k7DVIK5TE, @ara4n mentions "Google up [MSC3401](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/3401)", however, because google doesnt index pull requests, direct links to MSCs dont ever show up in search results.

There's a two-part solution to this, the first is to provide (generated) pages that're linked by https://spec.matrix.org/v1.1/proposals/#proposal-tracking, that explain and fill in some information from the PR.

Google can index that index page, but it will not send users to it once it finds the MSC, and even if it did, the user would be dumped inside a long list, using ctrl+f or scrolling to find the one it wanted to actually go to.

As such, the bot can probably generate these pages, and provide a link to the actual PR inside of them.

Secondly, it would be useful to provide [sitemaps](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/sitemaps/overview) next to this index, which google can scan efficiently and quickly find new MSC pages like above, which would help improve results.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the proposal-tracking page at spec.matrix.org/v1.1/proposals/#proposal-tracking and inspect how MSC information is generated and linked. Review the linked MSC3401 pull request and the sitemap guidance to define the generated page and sitemap outputs; done means individual MSCs are indexable, link back to their pull requests, and are discoverable through a sitemap.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
html
Domain
documentation, search
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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