Canonical URL links
22 February 2009 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | 4 comments
From Yoast and very cool:
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have just announced a new tag, which we can use to tell the search engines which URL it should have for the current page. This is probably best explained with an example, so here goes.
Suppose you have read my Twitter Analytics post, and you've started tagging all the URLs you spread on Twitter with Google Analytics campaign variables. So at some point, Google enters your site through this URL:
http://yoast.com/twitter-analytics/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter
&utm_campaign=twitterIf it did, in "old times," this would mean you'd have a duplicate content issue: the same content indexed under two different URLs. An issue SEOs have been trying to solve on web pages for ages, which sometimes created huge limitations. This is where the new tag comes in. You add this code to the
<head>section of your page:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://yoast.com/twitter/analytics/" />
Read the rest of Yoast's post and learn more about canonical URLs at http://yoast.com/canonical-url-links/. Google's official post on canonical URLs is at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html.
To make things easy for us, Yoast has already prepared a WordPress Canonical URL plugin , as well as a Magento extension and a Drupal module! Thanks, Joost!
While I appreciate Yoast blogging about this and their work in preparing the plugin, extension and module, one small critique. Technically, this is not a new "tag," rather it is simply a new value for the rel attribute of the existing link tag.
Jeffrey Barke is senior developer and information architect at theMechanism - New York, a multimedia firm with offices in New York, London and Durban, South Africa.
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
You’re absolutely right of course, but do you know how many people i would have to explain that too?
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Thanks for the post, plugin, extension and module, Joost! (And the comment of course!)
My apologies for the small dig, and I hear you regarding brevity. I almost omitted that small technical point from my post, but after a fierce inner battle, the grammar-nazi in me won out again…
Regardless, thanks again for your work. I'll be downloading and installing your WordPress plugin tonight.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Try this alternative: Canonical URL Wordpress Plugin.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Hi 5ubliminal,
I took a very brief look at your plugin, but can you provide more information on why I'd want to try your alternative when I'm happy with Joost's?
What makes yours different/better?
Thanks!