Version: 1.00, by cellarius
Developer Last Online: Apr 2022
Category: Miscellaneous Hacks -
Version: 3.8.2
Rating:
Released: 04-29-2009
Last Update: 04-29-2009
Installs: 32
Uses Plugins Template Edits Auto-Templates
No support by the author.
Note on versions:
This should work with every vB-version that uses the plugin system (3.5 and above). If not, please let me know. It also should work with older versions of Photopost. I tetsted on vB 3.8.2 and Photopost 6.22.
The problem: Duplicate content
One of the biggest problems of Photopost Pro when aiming at SEO-optimization is duplicate content - myriads of possible urls point to the same page. This leads to heavy penalization by search engines like Google. Although this has been critizised for years by Photopost customers, the developers were less than helpful, stating this was not "an issue with our program at all"; there are no indications whatsoever that this will ever be addressed.
A solution: canonical links
Not long ago, the major search engines (including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) introduced a new tag, designed to deal with just that problem. It allows you to define a canonical url for pages that can be accessed via various urls. This is just what Photopost needs and should really help SEO-wise (see Googles explanation):
<link rel="canonical" href="URL" />
What this product does
I wrote a small plugin that is only active on Photopost's showphoto.php, this being the most important and most duplicated page. It extracts the photonumber from the URL and constructs a canonical url that is made up only from the URL to the script and one parameter (the photo number). It works with both Photopost's URL versions (standard and spider-friendly). Additionally, if the URL that was used to call the page is not identical to the canonical URL, a "noindex"-Tag will be added.
Example:
Quick question, but does vbgallery work in the same way and does it require a similar solution to PhotoPost Pro? If so, will you be making a mod for vbgallery as well?
Probably - I'm not that familiar with vBG. Though I doubt that the problem can be as bad as with Photopost. I have vbseo installed and the SEO-gurus there have up to now not been able to handle Photopost - that's how bad it is . There is a plugin for vBG, tho. And no, I won't do something for vBG. As I said, I don't use it myself, and with vbseo there is a excellent product available for SEOing.
Hell, if that new taxonomy system coming with vB4 is any good, perhaps the albums can be modded into some kind of gallery.
At least the current db schema and code seems to make it pretty easy to build a gallery type addon based on (album) pictures - if I only had enough time ...
if you're using Template Management System, you're done. Otherwise, add $cel_photopost_canonical at the top of your headinclude template.
For the first step:
AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add / import product (at the bottom of the page). Then import the xml-file you downloaded.
For the second step:
AdminCP -> Styles & Templates -> Style Manager -> Choose appropriate style -> All Style options -> headinclude -> add $cel_photopost_canonical at the top.
Photopost Pro Canonical Links Tag for SEO Details »»
About Developer
Uses Plugins 
No support by the author.
05-02-2009, 11:24 AM
I have vbseo installed and the SEO-gurus there have up to now not been able to handle Photopost - that's how bad it is 
. There is a plugin for vBG, tho. And no, I won't do something for vBG. As I said, I don't use it myself, and with vbseo there is a excellent product available for SEOing.
