The discussion revolves around installing EasyEngine 4 (EE4) with Discourse in a subfolder, specifically example.com/forum/. unicom seeks guidance on achieving this setup using Docker, despite having little knowledge of the technology.
Stephen advises against subfolder installs, citing unnecessary complications and recommends using a subdomain instead. codinghorror argues that subfolders are not necessary for SEO purposes. However, unicom provides scenarios where subfolders can be beneficial for SEO, such as maintaining a pre-existing structure.
Stephen reiterates that subfolders do not offer appreciable SEO benefits and suggests searching for previous discussions on the topic. pfaffman notes that subfolder installs can be challenging, especially with systems that make assumptions, but offers paid assistance to set up a subfolder install with EE4.
EasyEngine (ee) is a linux shell-script collection, which makes managing your WordPress and Nginx sites on an Ubuntu server easy and fun.
I would like to install EasyEngine + Discourse like example.com/forum/
Now EE4 using Docker and Discourse using Docker too. Any ideas how to build it together?
Installation guides and examples of nginx configurations are welcome. I understand very little at Docker and I still have to study this technology.
Subfolder installs bring about a lot of unnecessary complication. If you’re learning this all for the first time I would really encourage you to start with a subdomain.
I am interested in the possibility of this, as this is sometimes necessary for SEO reasons.
Without strict necessity, I would always prefer a it’s own domain or subdomain
Subfolder is absolutely not necessary for SEO and anyone who tells you it is, is either bad at their job, incompetent… or both.
You’re not going to see any appreciable SEO benefit running Discourse under a subfolder.
Use the search and you will find a number of threads discussing the topic where the premise is pretty soundly debunked.
I know at least one reason affecting SEO - keeping the current structure. If the forum has already been in the subfolder /forum/ for 10 years, transferring it to another domain can adversely affect Google search results.
Also example.com and forum.example.com are 2 different sites. However, example.com and example.com/forum/ are 2 sections of the same site. And search engines view it’s differently. And it’s have different promotion models.
Google is not the only search service on the planet. In Russia, another search service has a dominant position. And this is 2 different case of SEO.
However, I would not want to continue the debate on SEO. The topic is not about that. If the use of subfolders is not possible in practice, I will simply take note of this.
On the contrary, if using in a subfolder is possible when using the EE4 stack (docker containers environment) I would like to have an idea how to do this.
It may be that someone has done that, but we’ve not heard from them yet. Subfolder installs are difficult and getting it to work with a system that makes a bunch of assumptions is likely to be more difficult.
I don’t wade in to the SEO debate.
If you have a budget, I might be able to help. I charge $500 to do it on a vanilla install. I would need to have a look at easy engine to know if that will complicate things further. My contact info is in my profile.