Gadget aliasing causes the rank, rating and comments to be lost

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Description of the bug/feature, or alias/deletion request. (For aliases use
the form old_url => new_url. For deletions, just list the URLs.)
==================================

Alias requests processed manually by Googlers are not satisfactory because:
- the gadget directory rank is reset as a new gadget
- the gadget user rating is lost
- the gadget user comments are lost
Several gadget developers (staring this issue) would need to have alias
requests processed to allow better management of their gadget hosting
structure, but are not able to go ahead with this given the data lost that
aliasing would cause.

PLEASE FILL OUT THE FOLLOWING FOR A BUG REPORT ONLY (delete everything
below this line for a feature, alias, or deletion request):

What steps will reproduce the problem?
======================================
1. Get a gadget with high ranking, lots of user comments, user ranking
2. File an issue here asking for the gadget to be aliased to a new location
3. ;-(( when the alias is performed a few days later, and the gadget rank,
rating and comments have been reset

What is the expected output?
============================
:-) when the gadget alias has been performed and all the gadget comments,
rating and ranking have been preserved (or manually transfered from old to
new).

What is the actual output?
==========================
;-(( when the alias is performed a few days later, and the gadget rank,
rating and comments have been reset

Which browsers have you experienced this on?
============================================
Any

Which operating systems have you experienced this on?
=====================================================
Any

Please use labels and text to provide additional information.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by jerome.m...@gmail.com on 30 Nov 2008 at 7:52

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thank you Jerome for filling this out. This should be a high priority seeing 
Dan's
comment regarding the googlepages transfer to google sites being risky if the 
move is
not made.

Original comment by marshall...@gmail.com on 1 Dec 2008 at 4:55

[GoogleCodeExporter]

With Google Pages transitioning to Google Sites, the more than 6,000 gadgets 
hosted 
on Google Pages are at risk of not working on Google Sites (the gadgets I have 
tried 
to host on google sites do NOT work). 

I really hope Google can resolve all the issues with the alias requests soon, 
so 
that we can alias our gadgets without all the negative effects.

Original comment by phillip...@gmail.com on 1 Dec 2008 at 5:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have made several alias request and in the process I always lose users.  Also 
it
has taken quite awhile to regain a good position in the directory which 
prevents the
addition of new users as the gadget is not visible.  Please resolve this issue. 

Original comment by alisa.el...@gmail.com on 1 Dec 2008 at 6:50

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just wanted to voice my support for this ticket.

In the past I have had to alias gadgets and it does seem to have a detrimental 
effect
on position in the directory - something that is vital to a gadgets success.

Original comment by ginga.ga...@gmail.com on 10 Dec 2008 at 5:04

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 10 Dec 2008 at 7:25

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks Jerome for posting this. I fear the same when resubmitting the gadget. 
one of
the support asked me to resubmit the gadget to re-chache the screen shot and 
other
details. I fear that I loose ranks and comments of the gadget.

Original comment by nibu.dev...@gmail.com on 6 Jan 2009 at 9:57

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Resubmitting a gadget (at the same URL) will not have an effect on ranking or
comments. It will simply ensure that the gadget is recrawled to update metadata.

I'm certainly aware that preserving ranking and comments through the aliasing 
process
is highly desired, but I don't have an ETA on when this feature will be 
available.

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 6 Jan 2009 at 6:13

• Added labels: Priority-High
• Removed labels: Priority-Medium

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am glad to see that this request was accepted and is being worked on, but I 
wanted
to chime in as well to mention how important this is from developers 
standpoint. When
a gadget becomes successful, there are many reasons why you would want to 
change the
url of the xml file (e.g., better hosting, transfer of ownership, etc.) but 
losing
ratings, users, etc. all defeat the purpose... looking for the ETA. thanks 

Original comment by ayda.ko...@gmail.com on 12 Mar 2009 at 5:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Google Pages is transitioning to Google Sites on June 1 
(http://googleappsposts.blogspot.com/2009/04/now-moving-to-google-sites.html), 
so 
all gadgets hosted on googlepages will stop working unless they are aliased.

Is there any hope that the alias issues will be resolved by the end of May?

Original comment by phillip...@gmail.com on 19 Apr 2009 at 3:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

June 1 is coming quickly. Googlers can you offer any hope for those of us with
high-user gadgets hosted on googlePages?

Original comment by marshall...@gmail.com on 19 Apr 2009 at 9:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Are there any potential negative effects that has prevented Google from getting 
this
done? It seems like an easy feature to implement.

Original comment by marshall...@gmail.com on 19 Apr 2009 at 9:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I do not believe this change will be in effect before the googlepages-hosted 
gadgets
need to be migrated. It's still being worked on, but it's part of a much larger 
set
of changes, so it can't simply be pushed in anticipation of this deadline.

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 20 Apr 2009 at 6:11

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok. This is a very big deal for many of our businesses. Do you think it would be
possible to influence the googlepages migration deadline to be pushed back 
until this
change is in effect? If it is possible there are many people that would be 
extremely
grateful.

Original comment by marshall...@gmail.com on 20 Apr 2009 at 6:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ditto.

My gadget has 50,000 users. Will it just go bye-bye when Sites takes over?

I have no idea how to move my gadget somewhere else without impacting existing 
users. Anyone have instructions??

Original comment by sav74...@gmail.com on 27 Apr 2009 at 11:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If it can't simply be pushed in anticipation of googlePages deadline on June 1 
(as 
mentioned in Comment 14), then you can probably accept redirecting for gadgets 
and 
provide fix for:

http://code.google.com/p/igoogle-legacy/issues/detail?id=540

That should be pretty simple fix.

Original comment by gfa...@gmail.com on 22 May 2009 at 6:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Doing my best to answer the questions here:
1. There will not be any changes to the way the directory functions prior to 
the end
of Google Pages. This includes preservation of rank/comments/rating for aliased
gadgets, and accepting redirects.
2. I don't have an ETA on when such features will be supported. I could guess, 
but it
would be disingenuous.
3. To request an alias of a gadget on Google Pages, please use the alias request
form:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cEhGZVVmVUNQVmI1N2lvOW5nOG
JNUFE6MA..
4. If for some extenuating circumstances, you cannot use this form, please add 
your
aliases (in the form of one alias per line formatted as old_url => new_url) to 
this
issue: http://code.google.com/p/igoogle-legacy/issues/detail?id=551

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 26 May 2009 at 5:48

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Also I noticed that after aliasing has been performed my gadgets were removed 
from 
the directory. Aliasing should update the directory with the new locations not 
remove them. 

http://gglets.gfarry.com/gf-weather-monitor.xml
http://gglets.gfarry.com/gf-portfolio.xml

I submitted them again but it can take up to weeks to appear in the directory 
again.

Original comment by gfa...@gmail.com on 1 Jun 2009 at 5:36

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue 556 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 3 Jun 2009 at 9:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi,

I performed "alias request "on 10th.
http://co2calc.googlepages.com/co2calc.xml ==>
http://co2calc.appspot.com/co2calc.xml

My gadget lost a rank and a rating. 
Furthermore, it is not displayed even if I search it by any word.

My Gadget:
http://www.google.co.jp/ig/directory?hl=ja&url=co2calc.appspot.com%2Fco2calc.xml

A search sample (Search results 0):
http://www.google.co.jp/ig/directory?q=CO2Calculator
http://www.google.co.jp/ig/directory?q=CO2+Calculator

Thanks,
co2calc

Original comment by co2calc@gmail.com on 21 Jun 2009 at 5:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

co2calc,

Please submit the new gadget in http://google.com/ig/submit
It will get listed in a week..

Original comment by manikart...@gmail.com on 21 Jun 2009 at 5:40

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi everyone. Is there someone tracking this issue that has filed an alias 
request
that has been active more than a week, and who can verify (via analytics, etc) 
that
the number of users they see in the directory is different from the number they 
expect?

For instance, I'm looking for alias A => B where
User count A = X
User count B = Y
And X > Y even after the alias has been active for more than a week.

Thanks,
Dan

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 24 Jun 2009 at 11:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have
http://gglets.googlepages.com/gf-portfolio.xml aliased to
http://gglets.gfarry.com/gf-portfolio.xml more then 3 weeks ago.

Before aliasing, the user count was 13-15K and ~55K pageview/day according to 
analytics. Now, it shows 7900 users and ~40K pageview/day. 
But, it showed <100 users yesterday, so, it's a big progress.

Anyway, I believe it can be real user count, since, some users could delete my 
gadget bacause of bandwith limit issue on googlepages before aliasing.

Thanks for updating the user count.

Original comment by gfa...@gmail.com on 25 Jun 2009 at 12:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Dan - was gfarry's information helpful? If you need more data points, we'd be 
willing to volunteer one of our gadgets as a guinea-pig, submit an alias 
request, 
and experiment with before and after stats. 

However, isn't the main issue with the gadget directory rank, rating, and 
comments 
as opposed to the user count?

Thanks

Original comment by creatonic.network@gmail.com on 6 Jul 2009 at 4:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, it was helpful. Migration of user count came along as a sort of "freebie" 
with
another change, I just wanted to get some external verification that it was 
working.

Still investigating the process of migrating other details.

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 13 Jul 2009 at 7:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi Dan, 

I have filed alias requests for all my gadgets(they were hosted on Pages so I 
moved all of them to Google Code) 
and the aliases are active since June 9th 2009. I have two problems I clearly 
see : 

1) The number of users show up as <100 for all my gadgets even today, it used 
to be several thousands before 
aliasing.. (But analytics shows my users like before)
2) I don't see my gadgets in the directory even if I search by keywords.. 

Dan, Can I just resubmit my gadgets to the directory to solve the above issues? 
Will it break the gadget usage 
for the thousands of users who are currently using it(have already set their 
preferences)?

Here are all the gadgets I submitted for aliasing : 
http://www.freewebs.com/udaysasi/udaysModules.html The URLs 
in this page point to the new locations, after aliasing..

Thanks
-Uday

Original comment by udays...@gmail.com on 30 Jul 2009 at 10:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It will take 3 to 6 weeks to get the right number of users and I am not sure 
about the 
ranking.
But existing users will still be able to use without any problem..

-Karthik

Original comment by manikart...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2009 at 11:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

My gadget NEVER worked after this GooglePages migration and alias redirect.

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&url=sav74sac.googlepages.com%2Fportfoli
o.xml

It just says "Information is temporarily unavailable." on iGoogle.

Very disappointing.

Original comment by sav74...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2009 at 4:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I saw my traffic drop by 50% after the alias.  Recently my gadget started 
displaying 
same message when I try to view it on my iGoogle page: "Information is 
temporarily 
unavailable."  However, it seems some users are still able to render the 
gadget, 
because according to analytics I am still getting some traffic to it.  However, 
the 
traffic has now dropped by another 30%.

Original comment by jsie...@gmail.com on 7 Aug 2009 at 12:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The Orkut team figured out how to get this very issue taken care of in June 
last year:
http://orkutdeveloper.blogspot.com/2009/06/app-url-migration-tool-available.html

Maybe iGoogle could grab their code?

Original comment by marshall...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2010 at 6:38

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sounds like a good suggestion (#32). Dan, would Orkut's implementation be 
helpful here? 

Original comment by ayda.ko...@gmail.com on 18 Jan 2010 at 2:48

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Orkut and iGoogle already share some common directory infrastructure, but 
getting
orkut's solution to work for iGoogle is a bit more complicated than 
copy-and-paste. :)

This is still on the team's radar, but I don't have a timeline on 
implementation.

Original comment by api.dwh%...@gtempaccount.com on 21 Jan 2010 at 10:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

thanks for the update! now that you guys are hands dirty fixing other directory 
related issues (#628), thought it may be a good time to take care of this one 
as 
well in the process :)

Original comment by ayda.ko...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2010 at 11:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Aliases have changed slightly since this issue was filed but alias handling is 
still being considered.

Original comment by robruss...@google.com on 25 Jun 2010 at 5:11

• Added labels: Priority-Medium
• Removed labels: Priority-High

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi,

I managed to get by a full year after the big move, without aliasing.  However, 
I'm going to try to change domains, and at this point think that I have no 
choice (until now I sacrificed the quality of my website, and even lost email 
access to my Google Apps domain in order to avoid aliasing).  Does your team 
have an update on the status of maintaining ranking & comments when aliasing?

If not, may I ask if the ranking drops (and pageview drops identified by others 
on this thread) are just temporary?  If the rankings initially drop, but Google 
detects the gadget's existing users and re-adjusts the rankings back to their 
original state, I'm OK with such a temporary hit.  If the rankings don't fully 
recover from the move, then maybe I'll keep trying to delay the aliasing.

Original comment by jglassen...@gmail.com on 6 Oct 2010 at 12:38