move vettec to primary frontend

[apex-omontgomery]

Consolidate random urls

Why is this feature being added?

Currently have vettec.operationcode.org in a different repository than the primary operation code.
https://github.com/OperationCode/vettec

What should your feature do?

Create a new page within this project to house this information, do we continue to use the vettec subdomain or do we redirect this old subdomain to operationcode.org/vettec?

[jjhampton]

Possible duplicate: #356

My two cents: It doesn't seem useful to create a page for the https://vettec.operationcode.org/ content, as it is out of date. The VET TEC act was merged into the Forever GI Bill, which has already been passed/signed.

[apex-omontgomery]

Per conrad:
Vettec can be sunsetted
Or redirected to OC.org
the bill passed iwth Forever GI bill.

[kylemh]

The route exists via SEO and we don't wanna drop people...

I also feel like it'd be confusing if we simply redirect, but maybe that's the best move.

[jjhampton]

Redirect to OC.org seems like a good way to capitalize on the existing SEO indexes. Generally, redirects are the best way to handle old/stale pages where we no longer want to serve content. At some point Google will probably stop indexing the page anyway, since we'll just be redirecting and the original content will be gone.

We can also submit requests to Google to stop indexing the page, as @sethbergman has explained for other issues elsewhere.

[kylemh]

Nothing can be done in the front-end code. I tried altering the CNAME to point to our website in DNS Simple, but now the link is simply broken.

[sethbergman]

@jjhampton wrote earlier:

We can also submit requests to Google to stop indexing the page, as @sethbergman has explained for other issues elsewhere.

This is the way to go if you don't want the link(s) to be search results.

@kylemh can you elaborate on this:

The route exists via SEO and we don't wanna drop people...
I also feel like it'd be confusing if we simply redirect, but maybe that's the best move.

I appreciate the additional details. I've not been on Slack recently. BTW awesome work on the new front-end repo! 😃

[kylemh]

My concern is a little less valid since the page has been broken for nearly two weeks (and is SSR, so the Goog prolly already indexed a 404 😓 ), but I was only concerned with users clicking an indexed link after being given a preview of its contents from Google, but then being redirected to a completely different page that didnt match the preview item on Google.

[sethbergman]

It would still be a good idea to use Google Webmaster Tools to remove the 404 page from search results. Last I checked it was still showing up on search results. Although I must say that it's one of the coolest 404 pages I've ever seen.

[kylemh]

@sethbergman so weirdly enough I've done it before, but it seems to continue to come back.

[sethbergman]

I think we need to add a disallow rule on a robots.txt file. Either that or add <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"/> to the 404 component.
Maybe both; what do you think?

• https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag#handling-combined-indexing-and-serving-directives
• https://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt

[kylemh]

That sounds good to me. 👍 I'm no SEO expert 🙈

[sethbergman]

I'll put in an issue and PR today. SEO is it's own beast. You're still a badass software developer @kylemh

[dgisser]

Google isn't indexing the 404 (at least not currently), it seems like it's indexing https://www.operationcode.org/apprentices which leads to a 404. If we change it so that bad links redirect to 404 instead of just showing the component, I bet google will stop indexing them.

[kylemh]

@sethbergman @hollomancer

That explains that! Thanks so much @dgisser

[sethbergman]

Cool! We still need to add the following to the 404 component so that it doesn't get indexed.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

As for the other links, is there an easier way than the Google Webmaster URL tool for removing old links? Redirects to the 404 page for each outdated link seems more like a bandaid rather than just removing them and reindexing the site. If there's a better way to approach this, I'm open to discussing the implementation. Thanks for your help and research on this! 👍

[dgisser]

This project doesn't have a proper 404 page. The status code for the 404 page is 200, which is bad practice, and why Google thinks it deserves an index.

@sethbergman I think something like this (https://stackoverflow.com/a/40805821/2158302) would not require much modification, and by sending the 404 status code we would be in the clear