Can nukeSEO(tm) DH also handle rel="canonical"?

webmaster Joined: Dec 26, 2005 Posts: 254

One of the issues with *nuke, especially within News and Forums, but in other areas as well (such as anything with a list and sort feature), is substantially duplicate content. I wonder if the nukeSEO(tm) DH classes can be modified to not only handle the page title and meta keywords/descriptions, but also to recognize when the a link rel="canonical" would be helpful.

See this here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394

This whole DH architecture opens up exciting new opportunities every time we turn around. Wink

Great job kguske!

webmaster Joined: Oct 26, 2007 Posts: 69

nice idea.

montego wrote:

This whole DH architecture opens up exciting new opportunities every time we turn around. Wink

Great job kguske!

I second that... I stayed up until 4:30am the first night I got it config'd, playing with titles, keywords, modals, and such; until my eyes started watering which forced me to go to bed. Rolling Eyes

great fun, even with the coding hangover the next day...

Site Admin Joined: May 12, 2005 Posts: 876

Possibly. But what about short links?
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Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 6:55 am Post subject:

Already mentioned in a different thread and ShortLinks doesn't resolve any of the "duplicate" content problem as all parameters are needed even in the shortened URL (with very few exceptions).

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject:

i read this (below) and i think i better understand the canonical setup.. I had just glanced over this originally and assumed it was implemented similar to rel="nofollow".. But looks like montego's suggesting the ability to mark a page as duplicate content and add a tag to the head with the URL you prefer to be indexed...

Quote:

Since February 12th, 2009 the 3 major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) have agreed to recognized a new canonical link element.This will allow people who don’t have server access to hint the search engines on their favorite canonical version of the URL in order to prevent useless duplicated content.

The Canonical Link Element is a small piece of code that you’ll insert in the <head> of your source code for the page that you wish to have seen under its canonical form by the search engines.

Let’s take an example of non-canonical ecommerce link:

http://www.yourdomain.com/yourproductpage.html?12313jdr3234f?45232&234

In order to prevent conflicts and duplicate content with different attribute variation of this dynamic link, we’ll be using the Canonical Link Element in the source code to properly guide the search engines:

Please note that the canonical link element is not a strict directive, but merely a recommendation; the final decision to take this into account or not is strictly upon the search engines to make.

Also note that it is not possible to address a cross-domain reference through this canonical link element, however, sub-domain references are acceptable.

Whenever using canonical link element on your pages, it is strongly recommended that any reference to this page is make with an absolute link instead of a relative one.

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject:

Sorry - I need to clarify. My point is that if we show a link in the canonical link, we'll need to replicate the shortlinks logic to determine that link, right?

Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:34 pm Post subject:

Yes, kguske, I believe you are right to an extent. I would suspect that one could only really determine the "canonical" though with a manual override? So, not sure there needs to be any specific logic... (Haven't given this more than an ounce of thought though... just now going through upgrading my site and really digging deep into this.)

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:10 am Post subject:

If mod_rewrite handles the canonical link, too, there shouldn't be an issue.

BTW, this is a really good overview from Matt Cutts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:37 am Post subject:

I don't believe mod_rewrite can handle it. What you are suggesting is that we lop off the additional parameters when the URL has to have the additional "parameters" in order for proper operation for the end-user. However, from an SEO perspective, it only makes sense to crawl the main canonical link.

For example, the following URLs are examples of substantially similar (in fact, essentially duplicate) content:

http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131
http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0

Now, with RavenNuke(tm)'s latest News rendition, I re-coded the comment threading to pull from the user's cookie or userinfo record rather than taking it off the URL, but I needed an example to bring my point home.

So, if I ShortLink the above, these two links become:

http://nukeseo.com/article131.html
http://nukeseo.com/article-131-thread-1-0.html

For the non-RavenNuke(tm) 2.4+ users, the above two links are absolutely necessary to be unique in order for the user's comment threading settings to work properly. I can't just chop the second URL down to just match the first.

This is why I think we need to either modify the core code to pass rel="canonical" on these links (probably the best option, but won't help for add-ons), or we need some way to be able to override a link to add the attribute. However, I will admit, now that I understand better how DH works, I don't think it is a good fit for fixing this because the overrides are by ID's rather than unique URLs. So, I understand your hesitation/concern.

Edit: in thinking about this some more, if I can create the right link pattern, maybe, just maybe I can get it to add the "rel" attribute... what a pain.

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:42 am Post subject:

Actually, what I meant was - which link do we use in the canonical link?

http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131

or

http://nukeseo.com/article131.html

Since these are generated by PHP, we will need to duplicate the short links logic IF mod_rewrite doesn't also rewrite the canonical link. If mod_rewrite handles it, we can just use the first link.

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:47 am Post subject:

I don't think that is really the right question. Either a site is going to use ShortLinks or it isn't. So, I am not even considering the "switch" from non-ShortLinks to ShortLinks. That is not the issue here in my mind. The issue is absolutely the exact example I mentioned above.

For the following two links:

http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131
http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0

In my opinion, the canonical should be:

http://nukeseo.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=131

If someone is using ShortLinks, then the two links become:

http://nukeseo.com/article131.html
http://nukeseo.com/article-131-thread-1-0.html

And in this case, the canonical should be:

http://nukeseo.com/article131.html

So, the real question is how can we recognize when we have this issue and somehow provide the canonical reference. At this point, I am still not sure, but good discussion nonetheless.

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:48 am Post subject:

It was interesting to note from Matt Cutt's discussion the different ways to address duplicate content and also the influencing factors. For example, the weight that Google might give to the link in the sitemap...

That specific comment reinforces the need for the canonical link to be consistent with the sitemap link. We could /should use the same logic the sitemap uses to determine the link to determine the canonical link...?

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:54 am Post subject:

Ah, very, very, very good point. I don't have specifics right now, but I seem to recall for one module, the sitemap links might be different than the main link which may also be different from the nukeFEED link. I believe News is a perfect example at least of the Sitemap link not being right... it really shouldn't include the comment threading parameters IMO.

I fixed this long back on my site when I originally setup the Sitemap and was certain that I even mentioned it at that time... but, who knows the way my memory is these days.

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:54 am Post subject:

Sorry, posted before seeing your last response. I agree with your recommended canonicals. I was just taking it the next step, and I believe (not sure) that mod_rewrite may address it. If so, we can focus on identifying the canonicals and making sure they foot with the sitemap.

Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:56 am Post subject:

yeah, since my Sitemap is tapped, I was able to simply lop off the remaining parameters, but probably should clean this up for a nukeSEO 2.0.

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