[wp-hackers] Canonical integration into core

[Chris Jean]

Hey... We're all free to share our opinion here.

You're a savvy dev, and I trust that you'll know ways to modify its 
behavior if you find issues with it. However, I don't trust those that 
don't know all the ins-and-outs of these things to add it for me.

So, I guess that this is a trust thing. I trust you do what is right and 
reasonable, but I don't trust that all of the other theme producers out 
there to know about all of these discussions and topics nor do I trust 
them to properly add the necessary changes to their themes.

Chris Jean
http://gaarai.com/
http://wp-roadmap.com/
http://dnsyogi.com/



Nathan Rice wrote:
> And Chris goes and stabs his co-worker in the back! ;-)
>
> OK, I won't concede making it a template tag, but you guys are obviously in
> the majority here. Put the damn thing in core. :-)
>
> Nathan
>
> My Website
> http://www.nathanrice.net/
>
> My Twitter
> http://twitter.com/nathanrice
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Joost de Valk <joost at yoast.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> 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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