Constructing Links to Profiles

Links to profiles can be constructed manually for both authors and commenters using the following Movable Type template code:

• For Commenters:

  <a href="<mt:CGIPath><mt:CommunityScript>?__mode=view&id=<mt:CommenterID>">
    <mt:CommenterName>
  </a>
  

• For Authors:

  <a href="<mt:CGIPath><mt:CommunityScript>?__mode=view&id=<mt:AuthorID>">
    <mt:AuthorName>
  </a>
  

Using Pretty Profile URLs

The profile URL syntax above is not aesthetically pleasing to most. Many of these links can be improved and made more SEO friendly by some simple Rewrite Rules that can be used in Apache and other web servers. For example, here is a URL to a user’s profile:

http://www.foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&id=1

Which is, by the way, analogous to referencing the same user’s profile via username:

http://www.foo.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&username=byrnereese

Some site administrators may wish to construct profile URLs like this:

http://www.foo.com/profiles/byrnereese

To do so, here is an Apache mod_rewrite that will transparently map a profile URL of your choice to the canonical profile URL structure of Movable Type:

RewriteRule ^/profiles/(.*)$ /cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&username=$1 [P,L]