[theme-reviewers] Proposal for new guideline

Joost de Valk joost at yoast.com
Wed Mar 7 06:43:16 UTC 2012


Yes. That effectively blocks all custom taxonomies from indexation. I think that's plugin territory :-)

Best,
Joost

Sent from my iPhone

On 7 mrt. 2012, at 04:09, Doug Stewart <zamoose at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>     >>
>>>     >>
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> 
> 
> -- 
> -Doug
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