[theme-reviewers] Proposal for new guideline

Angelo Bertolli angelo at bertolli.org
Tue Mar 6 22:45:43 UTC 2012


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
>     >>
>     >>
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