[theme-reviewers] Proposal for new guideline
Doug Stewart
zamoose at gmail.com
Wed Mar 7 03:09:29 UTC 2012
I forget where I picked this nugget up but it's been in my header for ages:
if((is_single() || is_category() || is_page() || is_home()) &&
(!is_paged())){
?>
<!-- ok google, index me! -->
<?php
}else{
?>
<!-- google, please ignore - thanks! -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">
<?php
}
Assuming it goes under the same rubric, no?
Also, if we still have Joost's ear: do you see any SEO impact in
having that functionality in the head?
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Angelo Bertolli <angelo at bertolli.org> wrote:
> Yes, you guys are right... I can't think of any good reason for a theme
> to use this.
>
> On 03/06/2012 05:42 PM, Chip Bennett wrote:
>> Let me ask a different way: what does rel=canonical or rel=nofollow have
>> to do with *presentation* of content?
>>
>> Let me ask yet another way: what is the potential impact of changing
>> Themes, if rel=canonical or rel=nofollow are defined *by the Theme*?
>>
>> Chip
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Angelo Bertolli <angelo at bertolli.org
>> <mailto:angelo at bertolli.org>> wrote:
>>
>> So are theme developers also restricted from using nofollow? It is
>> functional.
>>
>> I don't think theme developers should be restricted from using
>> rel="canonical" just because some of them may use it wrong, or because
>> Google treats it a certain way for search results.
>>
>> On 03/06/2012 05:24 PM, Chip Bennett wrote:
>> > The criterion for me is Presentational vs Functinoal. I think that
>> > rel=canonical clearly falls under "Functional", and therefore is Plugin
>> > territory.
>> >
>> > Chip
>> >
>> > On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Emil Uzelac <emil at themeid.com
>> <mailto:emil at themeid.com>
>> > <mailto:emil at themeid.com <mailto:emil at themeid.com>>> wrote:
>> >
>> > I was reading from my phone....
>> >
>> > I agree that Themes should not mess with rel="canonical" at all.
>> > Majority people are devs not SEO consultants. Required not to
>> use is
>> > what I believe we should do.
>> >
>> > On Mar 6, 2012 4:17 PM, "Joost de Valk" <joost at yoast.com
>> <mailto:joost at yoast.com>
>> > <mailto:joost at yoast.com <mailto:joost at yoast.com>>> wrote:
>> >
>> > It has nothing to do with using my plugin or not. It's
>> something
>> > even my plugin can't fix :-)
>> >
>> > Best,
>> > Joost
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >
>> > On 6 mrt. 2012, at 23:14, Emil Uzelac <emil at themeid.com
>> <mailto:emil at themeid.com>
>> > <mailto:emil at themeid.com <mailto:emil at themeid.com>>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> If they do not use your plugin would this hurt the SEO?
>> >>
>> >> On Mar 6, 2012 3:47 PM, "Joost de Valk" <joost at yoast.com
>> <mailto:joost at yoast.com>
>> >> <mailto:joost at yoast.com <mailto:joost at yoast.com>>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi all,
>> >>
>> >> tldr version: I would like a guideline that tells theme
>> >> developers to /not/ include a rel=canonical link in their
>> >> theme as it hurts people more than it helps in a lot
>> of cases.
>> >>
>> >> long version:
>> >>
>> >> As some of you probably know, I do a lot of SEO
>> >> consultancy. Some of it is related to people who have
>> >> suddenly lost all their rankings and want me to help fix
>> >> it for them. Today I helped out a blogger, unpaid because
>> >> I just liked his blog as it was about children with Down
>> >> Syndrome.
>> >>
>> >> He had recently switched themes /and /started using my
>> >> WordPress SEO plugin, and of course he was blaming my
>> >> plugin for his sudden loss of rankings. What I found out
>> >> though, was that the theme had the following rel=canonical
>> >> link in the header.php:
>> >>
>> >> <link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo home_url(); ?>" />
>> >>
>> >> above the call to wp_head. This was causing each
>> >> individual post to have a canonical point back to the
>> >> homepage. Now you should know that Google especially sees
>> >> a canonical as somewhat of a "soft 301 redirect". It
>> >> basically takes a page that has a canonical pointing
>> >> elsewhere out of the rankings. The effect is quite
>> dramatic.
>> >>
>> >> This was a premium theme, whose authors I have since
>> >> emailed. It got me thinking though: is this in the WP.org
>> >> <http://WP.org> guidelines? Apparently, it's not.
>> >> WordPress itself adds a rel="canonical" through wp_head on
>> >> single pages, and there's a patch in Trac to add it on
>> >> more pages. There are several themes in the repository
>> >> though that have absolutely 100% wrong canonical links in
>> >> their header.
>> >>
>> >> This one: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/digu is an
>> >> example. It's not popular and hasn't been updated in ages
>> >> so I wouldn't normally care too much, but I wanted to use
>> >> it as an example. It has the following code:
>> >>
>> >> <?php if(is_single()){ ?><link rel="canonical" href="<?php
>> >> echo get_permalink($post->ID),"\n";?>" /><?php }?>
>> >> <?php if(is_home() || is_tag() || is_category() ||
>> >> is_month() || is_year()){ ?>
>> >> <link rel="canonical" href="<?php bloginfo('url');?>"
>> >> /><?php echo "\n"; }?>
>> >> …. snip ….
>> >> <?php } ?>
>> >>
>> >> Using that theme on a live site could kill your rankings
>> >> instantly, as it would make all category listings etc have
>> >> canonicals linking back to the homepage. In most cases
>> >> this would prevent Google from spidering the links to the
>> >> posts on those pages.
>> >>
>> >> Now some themes, like Thematic and Hybrid, have somewhat
>> >> more sensible canonical functions, which makes this a hard
>> >> discussion. I would vote to call it plugin territory
>> >> though and keep it out of themes completely. Would love to
>> >> hear your opinions.
>> >>
>> >> Best
>> >> Joost
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> >> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> >> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>>
>> >>
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> >> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> >> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>>
>> >> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > theme-reviewers mailing list
>> > theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> > <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>>
>> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > theme-reviewers mailing list
>> > theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> > <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>>
>> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > theme-reviewers mailing list
>> > theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> <mailto:theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org>
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
--
-Doug
More information about the theme-reviewers
mailing list