1347903 - Improve identification of official Knowledge Base items, possibly include KB in the URL

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(support.mozilla.org - Lithium :: User Experience & Design, defect)

Description

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

It may help if the words Knowledge Base or abbreviation show up in the URL or Tile or breadcrumbs ?

Users may navigate from the KB listing pages:
Those groupings may well be broken or logical, and do not have a good indication that they are official KB articles. Knowledgeable users may attempt to search using the words Knowledge base or the abbreviation KB. On other sites including Mozillazine that helps find kb articles that is probably not the case on sumo lithium.

USER STORIES

== External search engine ==
- Simple search -
If for instance I search for "support.mozilla.org safe mode" with Google or DDG the first result is a redirect 
> https://support.mozilla.org/t5/How-To/Safe-Mode/ta-p/15176
The first hit found being 
>https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe Mode
If I search for "Firefox Knowledge Base" 
The first hit is not Mozilla or Sumo it is Mozillazine.
The first Mozilla hits are again redirects in ddg or in Google are items aimed at contributors not end users.
The actual first hit in Google is
> https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Contributor-Knowledge-Base/About-the-Knowledge-Base/ta-p/19913
That is the contributors KB article  *About the Knowledge Base* IMHO a broken article.

==Top Hit *About the Knowledge Base* issues ==
It is a contributor facing article. It is useful, or will be if and when it is fixed, and should be findable, but not as the top result for end users seeking help and wishing to find KB articles it is not what they need.

My Brief comment in stickied thread "How this forum works":
https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Knowledge-Base-L10n-Discussions/How-this-forum-works/m-p/1375675#M6473

== Example of Article Navigation needing improvement ==
See my post https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Knowledge-Base-L10n-Discussions/KB-Article-Discussions-Temporary-Notes/m-p/1375913#M6476 
Headed: "Bug? Is this a Listing or Article? It is broken anyway."
I am not sure I notice much if any  mention of this being within an official KB
 
Personally I would consider this and the broken contributor info to be something needing urgent attention but I realise there is a lot of work needed in Lithium so I have not attempted to prioritise this.

Comment 1

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

Correction
(In reply to John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me) from comment #0)
> ...
> > https://support.mozilla.org/t5/How-To/Safe-Mode/ta-p/15176
> The first hit found being 
> >https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe Mode
> If I search for "Firefox Knowledge Base" 
> The first hit is not Mozilla or Sumo it is Mozillazine.
> ...

CORRECTION
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe Mode 
That contains a space and fails to parse. In order for you to follow that link it   
should be:
>https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe%20Mode

Comment 2

[Joni Chan]

Thanks for filing this. I took a look at external search for support issues in general and users rarely include "knowledge base" in their searches. They more commonly search by question or task, which would take them to an article or a support forum post -- either one would help them accomplish their task.

Comment 3

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

It surprises me that knowledge base is not a term used often, but you are the one with the metrics.
Unless of course it is the dificulty of confirming a negative. 
If users searching externally for KB or Knowledge Base fail to find the KB we will not have metrics of the search term  will we!
( Although obvously you will have metrics for internal searches.)

> Users may navigate from the KB listing pages:
> Those groupings may well be broken or logical, and do not have a good indication that they are official KB articles. 

Even if we do not change it to say KB for SEO purposes there is still the issue of the pages not looking like official Sumo/Mozilla information but rather just comunity information. 
Shouldn't we try to improve that



Incidentally external search results for "support.mozilla.org safe mode" have improved for me since I filed this  bug. We beat Mozillazine on Google now, and also on DDG, although the 2nd DDG hit is currently one of out redirects.