Add-On Releases - SEOvB - Link Canonicalization for vBulletin Stop Duplicate Content NOW!

Squash vBulletin Duplicate Content Completely with Canonical URL's!
Courtesy of SEO vBulletin Services
tags: seo, vbulletin, vbulletin seo, link canonical, canonical

Google, MSN, and Yahoo have just relased a new tag for stopping duplicate content even further. Combining a good and valid vBulletin Robots.txt file along with the new canonical tag can destroy any duplicate content penalty your vBulletin powered forums may have had going on.

Originally Posted by Search Engines

Carpe diem on any duplicate content worries: we now support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that's accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version

Canonical Link URL Faq
Is rel="canonical" a hint or a directive?
It's a hint that we honor strongly. We'll take your preference into account, in conjunction with other signals, when calculating the most relevant page to display in search results.

Can I use a relative path to specify the canonical, such as <link rel="canonical" href="product.php?item=swedish-fish" />?
Yes, relative paths are recognized as expected with the <link> tag. Also, if you include a <base> link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL.

Is it okay if the canonical is not an exact duplicate of the content?
We allow slight differences, e.g., in the sort order of a table of products. We also recognize that we may crawl the canonical and the duplicate pages at different points in time, so we may occasionally see different versions of your content. All of that is okay with us.

What if the rel="canonical" returns a 404?
We'll continue to index your content and use a heuristic to find a canonical, but we recommend that you specify existent URLs as canonicals.

What if the rel="canonical" hasn't yet been indexed?
Like all public content on the web, we strive to discover and crawl a designated canonical URL quickly. As soon as we index it, we'll immediately reconsider the rel="canonical" hint.

Can rel="canonical" be a redirect?
Yes, you can specify a URL that redirects as a canonical URL. Google will then process the redirect as usual and try to index it.

What if I have contradictory rel="canonical" designations?
Our algorithm is lenient: We can follow canonical chains, but we strongly recommend that you update links to point to a single canonical page to ensure optimal canonicalization results.

Can this link tag be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
No. To migrate to a completely different domain, permanent (301) redirects are more appropriate. Google currently will take canonicalization suggestions into account across subdomains (or within a domain), but not across domains. So site owners can suggest www.example.com vs. example.com vs. help.example.com, but not example.com vs. example-widgets.com.

Sounds great can I see an example in action
Sure, here is a wordpress blog that has implemented canonical URL's already: http://obamanewssource.com Our vBulletin powered site that has made this implementation is only a test site.

How can I check if its working
Go to your showthread page, and hit view source, and search for "canonical" and you should see it automatically added. If its not automatically added for whatever reason, remove the product file thats attached and make this simple template edit to the end of your vBulletin headinclude template (it's a good idea to do this on all headinclude templates)

<if condition="(THIS_SCRIPT == showthread) OR (THIS_SCRIPT == showpost) OR (THIS_SCRIPT == printthread)">
<link rel="canonical" href="$vboptions[bburl]/showthread.php?t=$threadinfo[threadid]<if condition="$pagenumber>1">&page=$pagenumber</if>" />
</if>
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == index">
<link rel="canonical" href="$vboptions[bburl]" />
</if>

Tip: If you allow only access from www, or non-www version of your content, make sure your vBulletin path is set correctly!

Install Instructions
Upload attached product.xml file to your vBulletin forums using the built in product manager

Uninstall Instructions
Sorry to hear the modification isn't working, to uninstall it, simply use the uninstall function of the product manager

[SEOvB]

Originally Posted by Shadab

What about multi-page threads ?

The same thread URL would be put up in the meta canonical tag for each thread page (page 2, 3, ...).

Sorry for the slight oversight, I've updated the modification, as well as the manual template edit.

[Shadab]

Originally Posted by FRDS

Sorry for the slight oversight, I've updated the modification, as well as the manual template edit.

Glad to hear that.
I appreciate the quick response and fix.

[cykelmyggen]

Originally Posted by redlabour

Does it make sense with vBSEO 3.3?

I would like to know too

[SEOvB]

I'm not sure what all features are in vBSEO 3.3.0, though it surely won't cause any conflict. After installing, I suggest viewing the page source to make sure that the canonical tags are not there twice

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by redlabour

Does it make sense with vBSEO 3.3?

Originally Posted by cykelmyggen

I would like to know too

Originally Posted by FRDS

I'm not sure what all features are in vBSEO 3.3.0, though it surely won't cause any conflict. After installing, I suggest viewing the page source to make sure that the canonical tags are not there twice

It isn't necessary if you're using vBSEO since vBSEO already takes care of it.

Originally Posted by paintballer.ie

so what does this do exactly, add's ''<link rel="canonical" href.......'' to all links?

Yes.

[redlabour]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

It isn't necessary if you're using vBSEO since vBSEO already takes care of it.

??

I can?t find any canonical Tags in my Sourcecode - using vBSEO 3.3 PR7.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by redlabour

??

I can?t find any canonical Tags in my Sourcecode - using vBSEO 3.3 PR7.

vBSEO already concentrates your links to one rewritten URL via .htacess.

Zoints SEO also does this for forum home (and maybe for certain other URLs depending on how you set it up).

If you're using another method, you don't need the tags - they are simply another (and easy) method for use on various types of web pages.

[redlabour]

As announced today Canonical-Tags are integrated with vBSEO 3.3 RC1!

@djbaxter - i know what you mean - but you misunderstand Canonical-Tags - it is not the same it works now with vBSEO 3.3.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by redlabour

As announced today Canonical-Tags are integrated with vBSEO 3.3 RC1!

@djbaxter - i know what you mean - but you misunderstand Canonical-Tags - it is not the same it works now with vBSEO 3.3.

vBSEO claims that their package already filters duplicate URLs so why do they need the tags?

[SEOvB]

Originally Posted by redlabour

As announced today Canonical-Tags are integrated with vBSEO 3.3 RC1!

@djbaxter - i know what you mean - but you misunderstand Canonical-Tags - it is not the same it works now with vBSEO 3.3.

If vBSEO inserts Canonical tags, and you have vBSEO (apparently version 3.3 or greater) will have this feature built in, so there won't be any need for this extra modification what so ever for those forums. :up: