Is there a setting in Community Server to turn off comment redirection and simply use the URL that people put in their comments without the url encoded redirection code? Javascript can be used to count clicks or track without having to mask the URL.
For example, the way it is now:
http://www.tabletpcblogs.com/utility/Redirect.aspx?U=http%3a%2f%2fwww.whatisnew.com%2fblogs%2fdailynews%2farchive%2f2005%2f12%2f31%2f6063.aspx
VS.
http://www.whatisnew.com/blogs/dailynews/archive/2005/12/31/6063.aspx
#2 sure is better because:
- search engine love for those who leave comments (assuming rel='nofollow' isn't appended to the HREF). Since each blogger can moderate the comments, spam could be removed if present. I don't speak for every blogger of course, but I'd like to see people who comment on my blogs with good comments get some sort of search engine love. With the current system they can't unless I grab their comment and make a new post out of it. This means if the user leaves a comment and puts their own tablet pc blog in the URL space they can get
- easier to determine if the comment is spam by hovering over it without having to try and parse a URL encoded redirect or clicking through
- less page code :)
I could go on, but let's just put it bluntly: URL redirects in the comment area suck from both sides: blogger and commenter.
If there is a way to turn it off in this program, I'm putting my vote in to please turn it off. If we are stuck with it, then perhaps somebody could ask Telligent to make this an option in the next version of their software?
I'm sure someone will call this a spam prevention tool and that's all well and good for those who want to use that on their blogs, but it should be an individual blog author decision or webmaster decision, not the decision of the software company.
Thank you :)