[wp-hackers] Canonical integration into core

[Joost de Valk]

Amen! Well spoken!

On 17 feb 2009, at 17:50, Chris Jean <gaarai at gaarai.com> wrote:

> I understand where you are coming from Nathan, but I think that this  
> canonical tag is a different sort of beast and shouldn't be treated  
> as an SEO fad.
>
> People spammed their duplicate content all over a site to try to  
> improve their keyword rankings. Search engines protected their  
> search results by lowering value of duplicate content. Today's  
> dynamic URL structures present a problem of providing what is  
> technically the same exact content by different names, not to try to  
> improve rankings but to offer other benefits such as tracking or to  
> be easily read. This resulted in sites getting hit with the  
> duplicate content penalty. In order to correct this for legitimate  
> content producers that aren't trying to game the system, the search  
> engine devs have said, "here is a way that you good guys can stop  
> being penalized".
>
> So, this is different than keywords, descriptions, title, etc in  
> that this field doesn't try to enhance your keyword ranking and  
> can't be used to game the system. Rather, it's just a safety measure  
> to ensure that your site isn't inadvertently punished due to search  
> engines' actions to stem the tide of spam content.
>
> It's true that the redirects that WordPress uses take care of most  
> of this issue, but there are many areas that have already been  
> covered that aren't adequately protected. I'd rather have the WP  
> devs spend their time finding and addressing every possible avenue  
> where duplicate content could be shown than rely on every individual  
> theme developer to do that independently.
>
> To me, the only reason to not have something in core and on by  
> default is if there is a rational reason to not want it. Since this  
> is 1) not an SEO enhancement to artificially improve ranking, 2) is  
> blessed by the big players, and 3) doesn't do anything to affect  
> valid markup, I can see no reason why anyone would not want this on  
> their WordPress site.
>
> Adding a template tag is great and all, but I'd rather theme  
> developers focus on creating great looking themes with advanced  
> features rather than reading the latest buzz about meta tag  
> standards and practices.
>
> Chris Jean
> http://gaarai.com/
> http://wp-roadmap.com/
> http://dnsyogi.com/
>
>
>
> Nathan Rice wrote:
>> Joost,
>> This is one of my main concerns with it being "on by default".  I  
>> cringe
>> when I think about utter saturation of a new "SEO technique".  It  
>> makes the
>> technique useless. Think meta keywords, description, and keyword  
>> stuffing in
>> <title>.
>>
>> FWIW, the nofollow was to fight spam, primarily, was it not?
>>
>> But generally, I agree with Cutts ... it should be a core option.   
>> But make
>> it a friggin' template tag.
>>
>> Just say NO to saturation! ;-)
>>
>> My Website
>> http://www.nathanrice.net/
>>
>> My Twitter
>> http://twitter.com/nathanrice
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Joost de Valk <joost at yoast.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Sound bite from Matt Cutts, in reply to me telling him about this
>>> discussion:
>>>
>>> "that's great! Canonical tags should be added to WP core  
>>> cautiously and
>>> with thoughtful deliberation, but I support it."
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Joost
>>>
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