[wp-hackers] Canonical integration into core

[Joost de Valk]

On Feb 18, 2009, at 2:32 PM, Lynne Pope wrote:

> 2009/2/19 Joost de Valk <joost at yoast.com>
>
>> On Feb 18, 2009, at 2:07 PM, Lynne Pope wrote:
>>
>> There is no need to add meta data tags to handle this situation.
>>> Search engines that respect robots.txt all honour this, and have  
>>> done for
>>> years. I use pretty permalinks and none of my /permalink?anything is
>>> indexed. This also prevents indexing of search pages (which  
>>> strangely
>>> enough
>>> do get linked to). Depending on how the site uses these non- 
>>> standard URL's
>>> though there can be a loss of link juice by blocking them at  
>>> robots level.
>>>
>>> Disallow: /*?*
>>> Disallow: /*?
>>>
>>>
>> Lynne,
>>
>> you don't get it, I'm afraid. When you're blocking those pages from  
>> being
>> indexed, you're also blocking the search engines from allowing  
>> those links
>> to help your rankings. If you use the rel=canonical, you allow them  
>> to index
>> it, and they use the links toward that "faulty" URL to improve the  
>> rankings
>> of the page you set as canonical (provided they have (almost) the  
>> same
>> content).
>>
>> Best,
>> Joost
>>
>
> Joost, with respect, did I not say that depending on how the site  
> uses these
> non-standard URL's there can be a loss of link juice with using the  
> robots
> method?
>
> I was simply pointing out that there is more than one way to skin a  
> cat. The
> same can be achieved by using PHP to set locations in HTTP headers,  
> or to
> serve the correct page to search bots or...
>
> Sorry, but not all sites use non-WP-generated URL's and not all  
> require link
> juice from them. I am not trying to argue against inclusion of the  
> canonical
> URL tag (gave up on that ages ago) but was simply pointing out that  
> its not
> necessary for all sites.

Well it's not my call either, though I'd sure like them in there. :)