[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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