So what you really need is 1 of those short form URLs to replace the whole long string. However you do not want to be using 1 of the generic such services like tinyurl as you still get a random sort of string.

The answer is to use rebrandly.com
What is cool about this site is that besides creating generic links using rebrandly.com/xxxxx - where if you want you can actually specify the xxxxx if you choose, you can also use your own doman name for these links - or even a subdomain name - so you get either of the following: mydomain.com/membername or subname.mydomain.com/membername
Personally I prefer to go with the subname method (just head over to your domain registrar site and create a subdomain of say 'Members" - then on Rebrandly you register the domain as members.mydomain.com
Now you add a new shortcut on Rebrandly like members.mydomain.com/JohnSmith that points to Johns profile page on WA

Check their actual pricing https://www.rebrandly.com/pricing
Your main choice between the free plan and the next plan will be the number of links that you require. Do not worry too much about the clicks tracked limit in the free plan - that is just logging - you get unlimited click throughs in all plans.

Can someone come up with a work around or make this a priority? I believe you'll find it increases member sign ups.

I would like to have the ability to create a custom url for members. Right now clicking on a member in the directory comes up like this https://instructors-directory.wildapricot.org/Sys/PublicProfile/54539235/5309971

It was suggest that I could give each member an actual page and allow them to update the page. That's okay, but I can't find a widget that would allow me to input their actualy directory listing into the page.

My recommendation would be to allow us to change out the directory url to their name or a widget that would allow me to put their directory profile on their page.

Thanks, Tes

Wow, this has been on your wishlist going on 8 years now. And I see below that there is another string for this. Are you adding the two strings together? Is their another string for this we/you don't know about? How many requests do you need to move this up in the ranks? Creating new strings makes the need look smaller. That's one way of avoiding a topic. Our members use the url of their public profile page to send people to their page. On our previous website their page was their name. Now it's a long string that includes numbers. We've been live less than a week and the complaints are poring in. Members are pissed about this and not at happy about paying for profile page they can't share and no one can find. Very sad. We're going to lose members because of this.

Not in our plans yet Waiting for its turn. We're focusing on top voted ideas now.

Any movement on customized urls yet for member profile versus the long un friendly url versus something like MyTCenow.com/francinaharrison. That would really take us up an incredible notch

Yes please! Our site looks great but functions poorly in directing traffic to members.

My client, too (currently evaluating the software) needs this as a feature to offer members. The current site they're using offers it, so while membership self-mgt. is otherwise far superior and easy to use in W.A. than their current system.--to move to WA would be a serious downgrade to them if they can't maintain that feature for members.

Definitely same w/SEO indexing, which I've commented on separately in a different thread...

Many thanks.

We have a dedicated thread on Search Engine Optimization of Member Directory (and this members profile) - http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826142-seo-improve-member-directory-indexing-by-search . I would appreciate your posts there on that topic.

The problem is that the way directory is implemented does not allow search crawlers to index it and thus to make it available in search engines. This is in our radar but we have no exact dates when it's going to be implemented.

We moved our site to Wild Apricot several months ago. One of the draws was improved member management, but one of the expectations was improved search engine indexing of member lists (by state) and individual member pages, as our association competes with others nationally. We are still not seeing member lists or pages show up in search results, and it is a huge disappointment. Members are complaining they are not getting their money's worth with this service.

What can we do short term to improve search engine indexing, and what is Wild Apricot planning for the longer term?

http://www.personalchefscooperative.com

Our admins would greatly appreciate fields to add custom URLs and page titles to member profile pages. This, in addition to the presence of an xml site map for bots to crawl, would greatly improve potential for member pages SEO and visibility in SERPs.

Currently the page title is identical for all members and the query string in a member's profile URL has no human readability for identifying a member by name. Human readable taxonomy in page titles and URLs is critical in this day and age. SEO, today, is much more than building a network of links across the internet.

We would like to see this, too. Generally we use mod_rewrite on other CMSes to accomplish it (though I certainly don't mean to oversimplify matters).

In addition we would also like to specify custom page titles for SEO. All of our members want to be not only indexed, but indexed well :) !

Additionally, you could set up a type of mask to automatically generate the custom field name: For example, all membership profile could be set so that it generates it from the fields "organization-firstname -lastname"

Currently:
All member profiles (public or member-only) have their own URL. However, it's a long URL and not very friendly looking.

Desried
At present we have a way to create a custom URL for individual pages on the site. This functionality could be offered to Member profiles. Any time a member has selected to show their profile, give them a field where they can enter a custom URL for their page. This functionality would also exist on the Contact card, under the Privacy settings for the member.

So, for example, lets say I have a site http://www.usefulapricot.com, as a member I could create my custom URL to be http://www.usefulapricot.com/gvalentino. People who enter that URL on their own browsers would be taken directly to my profile.

Note:

* Names would be unique - if someone entered a name that was already taken, they would have to choose a new one.
* If the member's profile is member only, anyone clicking on the URL will have to enter their login credentials before going to the profile

I would like to see seo-friendly url's to individual member profile pages.

For example, a member profile on my directory currently looks like this and is very hard to remember and even harder for search engines to identify and recognize:

http://www.sbartistdirectory.com/Sys/PublicProfile/11989142/1701358

It would be much better if the url looked something like this because individuals and search engines would be able to find it and therefore it would easier to promote:

http://www.sbartistdirectory.com/artists/nancygifford

Thank you, Dmitry, for suggesting that I post this to your wishlist forum.

Peter Otte