SEF url's - Future and Duplicate url's

[ncowen]

I am also having duplicate content/url issues. I am pretty comfortable in Joomla, but have not been able to tackle this issue. I would really like to minimize the amount of urls leading to an article.

These are a few of the types of duplicate urls in my Google Webmaster Tools:

/articles-archive/4107-
/articles-archive/4107
/articles/dadsdivorce-live-what-surveillance-activity-is-allowed-in-divorce-cases.html
/component/myblog/dadsdivorce-live-what-surveillance-activity-is-allowed-in-divorce-cases.html

Am I correct in understanding that this can be solved with the .htaccess 301 redirects? Is their any worry about loosing page rank, SERP placement, visitors from search engines, etc?

[g1smd]

The correct solution is to not generate links pointing at different URLs for the same content.

The band-aid fix is to to redirect the incorrect requests. Using the rel="canonical" tag might be a better solution in this case.

[ncowen]

The correct solution is to not generate links pointing at different URLs for the same content.

The band-aid fix is to to redirect the incorrect requests. Using the rel="canonical" tag might be a better solution in this case.

I know that "DM Article Title List Pro" is causing the link to have sitename.com/components in the url. Any ideas on what is causing the article-archives?

This site is huge, I would love a solution that could be quickly applied. Can the htaccess rule you suggested earlier be used to for this situation? Or is there a htaccess rule to add the rel="canonical" tag to an article if the url is sitename.com/category/article-name?

[g1smd]

The rel="canonical" tag has to be added by the PHP script that generates the page, using information from the database.

It's nothing to do with .htaccess.

[kmfabercreative]

The biggest issue with J! SEF duplicate content typically is derived from multiple menu items pointing to the same content.

You can easily avoid duplicate content issues with J! Core SEF by utilizing the "alias" menu types. If you have multiple menus which dictate, from a technical standpoint (since J! Core SEF is based on Menus, not section/categories/articles), multiple pathways to one piece of content, then by utilizing the "alias" menu type, you can resolve that as Joomla! will defer to the alias specified.

Additionally, at this current point in time, sh404SEF & AceSEF are probably the two top SEF components available currently for Joomla! 1.5, 1.6 & 1.7. While it seems that sh404SEF seems to handle the core rewrites a bit nicer than Ace does, Ace handles quantity a lot better, and is—from my experience—better overall for 3rd party extension compatibility.

Additionally, AceSEF does manage SEO data better than sh404 at this point in time, and includes the ability to set "rel=canonical" tag URL's for each page / URL in it's database. This, to me, is an invaluable asset to Joomla!'s search optimization.

Performance, regardless of Core SEF or a 3rd party extension such as sh404SEF or AceSEF, can be improved upon by utilizing the caching system of each respective system (core, sh404 & ace), as well as other optimization plugins such as JCH Optimize & jbetolo (both 1.5 & 1.6 compatible).

And lastly, there will be some instances in the Core SEF (if you're using the system properly) that you will need to include the ItemID for the link to work. Since the URL technically does not exist unless it's a menu item, you must use the ItemID in your linking structure in order for Joomla! to know what you're referring to. This isn't the worst solution, but can be remedied by creating a "hidden" menu in the menu manager and creating menu items in the structure you desire (/page.html, /category/page.html, etc.). By doing this, the system now knows what the SEF URL's are, where they go to, and you can link to the content without ID's (this could become a largely tedious task, and I wouldn't recommend this process for medium to large websites).

Ultimately, every CMS will have the potential for duplicate content issues (even Wordpress!), and so it's a beast you will always have to battle with. However, if you learn the right ways and understand the concepts, you will find it's an easy beast to tame in the end.

Hope this helps.


Cheers.

[g1smd]

You should write that up and publish it in a prominent place with a few screen shots and/or examples.

It is the clearest explanation that I have seen for the (completely crazy, to me) way that Joomla works.

[ncowen]

Agreed. That is a great write up. I would add an additional paragraph on being careful which plugins/extensions you use. A lot of poorly written extensions can cause issues. I am fighting major issues with duplicate content issues because the previous web-master was not as selective.

Azrul's MyBlog is a great example of an extension that does not play well with others. When other extensions such as a Latest Article Teaser List, they use site/component/id# in the URL instead of the SEF url.

[kmfabercreative]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, glad it was somewhat helpful. I've put together a blog post that I'll follow up with a link to as soon as it goes live. It explains the Core SEF issue (I didn't get into the 3rd party components, optimizations, etc.) and has a video tutorial I shot this morning. It wasn't scripted, so it's a bit choppy, but it'll do the trick for the most part, I believe.

Again, I'll post the link when the post goes live.


Cheers.

[kmfabercreative]

Hi Everyone,

So in response to the issue of duplicate content within Joomla!, links, redirects, rel=canonical tags, etc., I have put together a somewhat brief blog post on our company's blog with a screen cast covering the steps to properly set up Joomla! menus to avoid duplicate content.

Of course, by following the steps listed, duplicate content will be largely managed, but not necessarily resolved. If you have any questions that were not answered in the post or video, feel free to post them in the comments section in the blog, and I'll be more than happy to follow up and answer them for you, to the best of my ability.

http://www.regalcreative.com/blog/preve ... ntent.html


Cheers!

[ncowen]

I solved the issue of inserting a canonical tag for components that do not play nicely, in my case Azrul's MyBlog. The issue with auto-canonical plugins is that it was choosing the wrong link to attach the canonical tag.

Here is code that I use to search to see if string 'articles/' is in the url, if it is the canonical tag will be added to the head.

Code: Select all

<?php
$myabsoluteurl=JURI::current();
$canonical = strstr($myabsoluteurl, 'articles/', true);
if($canonical == true) {
echo '<link rel="canonical" href="'. $myabsoluteurl .'"/>'; // echos canonical link
}
else { '<link href="'.$myabsoluteurl.'"/>';
}

?>

I simply inserted this into my interior page template and let it do it's magic.

[g1smd]

Make sure you test it by asking for a variety of junk and non-canonical URLs.

View source and check exactly what is returned.

[mattewbrand]

Guys I have a question.

I am using K2 and my menu items are creating duplicated URLs. For instance:

Code: Select all

index.php?option=com_k2&Itemid=117&id=1&lang=de&layout=category&task=category&view=itemlist

index.php?option=com_k2&Itemid=117&id=1&lang=de&task=category&view=itemlist

sh404SEF tells me, that it handels the first URL as the main URL. What impact has the second URL on Google when for both URLs one unique SEF-URL has been created? Is it possible for Google to find the duplictaed non-SEF-URL and index it?

[g1smd]

A URL with 7 parameters is already a complete abomination.

In 2012 it's crazy that people still write software that generates such junk URLs.

What impact has the second URL on Google when for both URLs one unique SEF-URL has been created?

The parameterised URLs, when requested, should return either a redirect to the SEF URL or should return a page of content with a rel="canonical" tag pointing to the SEF URL. Failure to do so is a major duplicate content issue.

[mattewbrand]

But what are the chances that those parameterised non-URLs are requested when sh404Sef generates 1 unique URL for all duplicated URLs?

[MGMT]

I have a question regarding this issue.
I'd like to create my own canonical tag plugin, that inserts a canonical tag with the SEF-URL of every website.
Is it possible to display the current URL as SEF-URL, even when the website was retrieved by something like

Code: Select all

http://localhost/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=102

?
The canonical tag should then look like:

Code: Select all

<link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost/joomla/aktuelle-aktionen" />

Thanks for your help in advance!

Best regards!

[Jarod545]

i ve heard about a modules name Canonical URL but i didnt tried it yet
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... tion-/7465

[Elliott Parker]

Has anyone find a Joomla plug-in that can scan your site and run a report on duplicate URLs? For example if both www and non-www versions are published?