Bubble Blog engine

[vladlarin]

Hi Bubble Team!

We’re frequently getting questions about how does Bubble page and URLs structure influence SEO standing, especially when it comes to dynamic pages, such as https://zeroqode.com/template/homebnb---rentals-like-airbnb-template-1528802772019x814394449850531800

Basically, you currently can’t have multiple page folders, and if it’s a dynamic page, then it will have the unique id as part of the URL, which makes a ton of sense functionally.

Yet there are strong opinions that the more human-readable the URL is, the better Google treats it, and we have been in multiple discussions with people about the pros and cons of the out-of-the-box approach.

There are some great plugins like Sudsy and our own free Navigator plugin which kind of solve this by providing the end-user the clean URLs, yet it can be tricky to set up.

What we wanted to ask about, is that it looks like Bubble’s own Blog (running apparently on Bubble), has some cool way to handle multiple URL folders and “nice” URLs in its structure.

Like this one:

Prebaked Potential: An interview with Zeroqode

So we were wondering if you could share your experience with building a blog with these features and if this is something that you can do with “generic” bubble builder capabilities.

Thanks a lot!

@allenyang, @eve

[NigelG]

is that it looks like Bubble’s own Blog (running apparently on Bubble),

builtwith reckons there is some ghost in there ?

[keith]

Yeah, the Bubble blog is not built with Bubble and does seem to be Ghost.

[vladlarin]

Yeah, I thought so.

I tried to set it up before within a bubble app, and ran into technical difficulties.

Reverse Proxy Setup

Hi All, Looks like my post on this topic was rolled back. Is there indeed, a way to configure bubble to redirect one of the directories to an external host? The point is that if you’re trying to integrate an external blogging solution specifically for SEO purpose as one of the directories of an existing application - there seems to be currently no technical way to do that on Bubble level. Here’s the feedback I got from one of the blogging platforms support teams: The way subdirectory suppor…

Yet I see this is possible

Maybe we can share the how-to to help other builders do the same?

Having a different content SEO approach is a deal breaker for some customers.

[keith]

Look: You CAN build blog-type functionality with Bubble, but is that the BEST solution for that?

Well… no.

So, just go build your blog projects another way. Like, a headless CMS (Contentful perhaps?), plus Gatsby plus React (static JAMstack, right?). Or do like Bubble and build on Ghost. Same difference, really.

(Costs about the same, BTW.)

[vladlarin]

Thanks Keith!

I agree, though the point is to have the blog run exactly on the same domain as your main (Bubble) application. Meaning, app.io/blog/ vs. blog.app.io

There are strong suggestions that having your content and direct links to it on the main domain is better SEO-wise than running a blog on a subdomain with a different cms/blog framework , which is what you are suggesting if I’m getting this all right.

To explain - I do not have an understanding of how to build a blog on ghost with all the right and pretty URLs within a Bubble app, as Bubble team did, hence the question

[darius]

Hi @vladlarin

Very interesting discussion thanks!

Was this resolved at all? I am wanting to integrate too a blog into my bubble application, and wondering what is generally considered the best 3rd party blogging CMS tool to use alongside bubble?

Based on your research - do you have a view on this?

Many thanks in advance!

[vladlarin]

Hey Darius!

Nope, still hoping for an answer here

As per the best CMS - there’s more than a few

We’re using Medium for our own publications at Zeroqode Blog.

Zeroqode Blog

But not sure how good of an advice that is since medium chopped off their custom domain feature (we still made it while it was available) and now putting some content behind the paywall too.

If you’re running the blog on a subdomain like we do, then Ghost and good ol’ Wordpress both seem to do the job very nicely.

What I would hesitate to advise on is how exactly to run a blog within your main domain (that is, app.io/blog), which I’m trying to figure out in this thread

That would be a game changers for a lot of apps running on Bubble.

P.S. Now that I’m thinking of it - I’ll go add that as an idea to my Bubble Wishlist project

Update: Here’s the link to the item to see if enough people think it’s a good idea!

Bubble Community Ideas Wishlist

[vladlarin]

Ran into an awesome Twitter thread from Rand Fishkin on the same topic, and I can’t help but ask again.

Is there any way for us to run a 3rd party blog (like Ghost) in a subfolder (bubble.io/blog) vs subdomain (blog.bubble.io)?

Rand Fishkin (randfish)

@eve, @allenyang?
Let us know please.

[allenyang]

Not right now - this would be a pretty decently-sized new feature for us to build. (It was non-trivial for us to do it for Bubble.) Feature request is definitely noted though!