Question Rewrite rules to serve attachments from CDN

[RedWS600]

Hi, I have a CDN set up, many thinks like javascript and images in the gallery are served from the alternative website address which had greatly sped up the website.
What I haven't been able to do yet is serve attachements in CMS articles from the CDN, I haven't found the place to change the URL from www to CDN in the code.

I see there is Custom Rewrite Rules that should be able to do this.

'http://www.solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=(\d+)$' => 'http://cdn.solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=$1'

Basically if its an attachment, then serve from the CDN alternative address. I cant see what I'm doing wrong though...
Hope someone can help.


Thanks in advance
Dan.

 

[neounix]

In my view, it's best to write these kind of rewrite rules using apache2 mod write and not DBSEO.

First of all, you don't need to do a match on the attachment id, because you are passing the same query string to the new URL.

All you need to do is to a match on attachment.php and pass the query string, as it, on the the CDN, something like this (untested):

RewriteCond  %{QUERY_STRING}   attachmentid=(\d+)$
RewriteRule  ^attachment.php    [url]http://cdn.solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php[/url]  [QSA,R=301]

 

[RedWS600]

Hi, thanks for the info, yeah it would make sense to pop it in at the lower level of .htaccess. So i guess it would call the attachment page to get the image, then be forwarded to the CDN. So it could work, that way. However instead of the extra lookup of calling a page to be redirected I think it would be nice to have the HTML of the page containing the CDN url.

This is an extract from one of the CMS pages.

<div class="article cms_clear restore postcontainer" id="yui-gen8">
<a href="http://www.solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=28890&d=1378117884" id="attachment28890" rel="Lightbox_0">
<img src="http://www.solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=28890&d=1376908202&stc=1" border="0" alt="" class="align_left size_medium" title="Ford F150 pickup at Wheels Day 2013"></a>

It would be nice for it to say...

<div class="article cms_clear restore postcontainer" id="yui-gen8">
<a href="http://[B]cdn[/B].solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=28890&d=1378117884" id="attachment28890" rel="Lightbox_0">
<img src="http://[B]cdn[/B].solent-renegades.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=28890&d=1376908202&stc=1" border="0" alt="" class="align_left size_medium" title="Ford F150 pickup at Wheels Day 2013"></a>

 

[Fillip H.]

For the record, the reason why custom rewrite rules won't work is because there is already a rewrite format for Attachments (which doesn't support CDNs inherently). CRRs only work with URLs that don't have another format.

Changing the URLs in the source would need to be a custom plugin on your site, though.

 

[RedWS600]

Changing the URLs in the source would need to be a custom plugin on your site, though.

Is this something you can offer for a fee?

VBSEO had the CDN feature, are you slowly incorporating all features from VBSEO? I currently have the gallery served from CDN, which is where alot of people visit, so i have the bulk of images sorted. Its just nice to clean up other area that can be sped up a little. serving it as a whole full sized image dosn't help. If the CMS picture has html width and height, then the Google page-speed plug in I'm running will resize it for next users reload.

So if the image could be changed to be served fro CDN and even better add the html width and height. I will happily do a little dance around the room.

 

[Fillip H.]

If there's enough demand for a CDN feature we would reconsider, as it stands we chose to focus on features that benefit SEO only. CDNs don't really present any benefits in terms of SEO.

 

[neounix]

We serve a lot (sometimes all) of our static content (images, attachments, clientscript) from a CDN, and we can easily do it without a DBSEO feature; as it is really pretty easy to set up mod_rewrite rules or vB replacement rules and/or vB phrases to have static content served from "anywhere".. and OBTW, it does not necessarily have to be a CDN (but it can be); it might just be a server set up just to only serve the static content.

I agree that DBSEO should expand and develop and improve core SEO features; and all the performance and "nice to have" but not not directly SEO related features should be done outside of DBSEO.

It is really a very simple template edit or vB replacement rule to insure attachments are served from an external URL (any URL we choose) and it is simply not really worth a lot of development effort and debugging the DBSEO code base, where there are core SEO features to test and improve; when a template edit or replacement rule can be created in just a few minutes of edits by the forum owner.

We have been serving static content from a CDN for many years, and we don't need a mod for this; as it's really easy to set up and control with a few edits in the style manager, and a few vB RR. We don't even use mod_rewrite for static content, because it is easy to do this with vB RR.

 

[RedWS600]

We have been serving static content from a CDN for many years, and we don't need a mod for this; as it's really easy to set up and control with a few edits in the style manager, and a few vB RR. We don't even use mod_rewrite for static content, because it is easy to do this with vB RR.

Care to pass on some info? What would i need to edit to have CMS image URL's served from another location?

All of my gallery is CDN, and the Client Script is too, by modifying the templates. However the CMS one's have given me some troubles, its like its hard coded somewhere.

 

[neounix]

Care to pass on some info? What would i need to edit to have CMS image URL's served from another location?

All of my gallery is CDN, and the Client Script is too, by modifying the templates. However the CMS one's have given me some troubles, its like its hard coded somewhere.

This is not SEO related, even in the least.

I kindly suggest you take these basic forum admin issues to vB.com or vB.org.

Best of luck!

 

[RedWS600]

This is not SEO related, even in the least.

I kindly suggest you take these basic forum admin issues to vB.com or vB.org.

Best of luck!

It was VBSEO related as it was one of the functions bundled in. I know DBSEO isn't a direct copy, but thought I'd suggest it as I'm sure other people will be after it too if they have switched from VBSEO and had that feature enabled.

As DBSEO has some rewrite rules, I wondered if I could make these rules work for me to implement images coming from another site.

It looks like there are other ways round it, and have been implementing them. Its working well for me.

Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[neounix]

Note: Configuring a CDN is not an SEO function. It is a performance and content distribution function.

For the record, I never used vBSEO for doing things are are better (and simply) done elsewhere. vBSEO was bloated; and personally, and I think Dragon Byte would agree, it's time to "move on" and stop asking DBSEO to do the things that vBSEO did; and to focus on core SEO functions, based on SEO in 2014, not on some legacy product that is now "out of business and gone from the earth".

In fact, DragonByte has already stated they are not going to add anymore vBSEO feature; as they want to focus on making DBSEO better not a copy cat of some defunct software that went out of business (what is the fun in that for a developer!?).....

vBSEO did many things it did not need to do, and it was bloated, the customer service was terrible and the folks just abandoned their entire user base. They turned off their web site and licensing server and the caused a lot of damage to many users. To even "read the name" of vBSEO make me very unhappy, so please, stop talking about a dead, defunct, bloated product from a company that abandoned their customers and caused harm (vBSEO) with regard (and in the same paragraph LOL) to DragonByte, who came in and helped everyone, and works hard to fix bugs, and is flexible and adaptive, and provides good customer service, and is focused on SEO 2014, not SEO 2008 (or whatever it was).

Down forever with vBSEO and Up Up Up with DBSEO.