Canonical tag & default.aspx and root duplicate content

11-17-2009, 07:11 AM

Hello,

There are two ways to get to the home page of the site

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/default.aspx

QUESTION: As IIS6 is a pain, to avoid duplicate content issues with SEO etc can we simply place a canonical tag on the page header as below or is there a better way this can be handled in MLv8?

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" />

Thanks

11-19-2009, 03:04 AM

Hello all,

Anybody got any thoughts on this?

Thanks

01-11-2010, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by werbadmin_user

Hello,

There are two ways to get to the home page of the site

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/default.aspx

QUESTION: As IIS6 is a pain, to avoid duplicate content issues with SEO etc can we simply place a canonical tag on the page header as below or is there a better way this can be handled in MLv8?

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" />

Thanks

There are actually loads of ways to get to your homepage :-

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/
www.domain.com/default.aspx
www.domain.com/Default.aspx
www.domain.com/DEFAULT.aspx
www.domain.com/default.aspx?source=advert221
www.domain.com/default.aspx?affiliateid=10050
www.domain.com/default.aspx?skinid=1

etc. etc.

What you're suggesting is fine.

taking this a step further, I had an issue whereby some of our pages were indexed by google as (for example) :-

showcategory.aspx?CategoryID=617&SEName=cavilon-skin-care
showproduct.aspx?ProductID=1517&SEName=scotch-packing-tape-6-x-rolls-with-dispensers-50mm-x-20m
& we have some pages indexed as https rather than http.
etc. etc.

I created the following xmlpackage to deal with category & product pages.

HTML Code:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<package version="2.1" displayname="BFGs canonical package" debug="false" includeentityhelper="false" allowengine="true">
    <PackageTransform>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
                        xmlns:aspdnsf="urn:aspdnsf" exclude-result-prefixes="aspdnsf">
          <xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />

            <xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:param name="site">http://www.domain.co.uk/</xsl:param>

			<xsl:param name="canonical">
				<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/categoryid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showproduct.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/productid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>p-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/productid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
					<xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
				</xsl:choose>
			</xsl:param>

<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$canonical != 0">
<link rel="canonical" href="{$canonical}" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise></xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

            </xsl:template>
            
        </xsl:stylesheet>
    </PackageTransform>
</package>

I simply include this in the <head> section of my template files & it's done.
It will be trivial to modify it to handle manufacturers, genres, sections etc. if you have a need.

TTFN

BFG

02-04-2010, 12:00 PM

Hi....If I place the <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" /> in the head section of my template and I use that same template on every page of the website is it going to mess up the other pages? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

02-05-2010, 02:58 AM

Probably will!?

What we did was.... use two templates for your site, one for the home page exclusively and one for every other page. Your tag can then sit on the one for your home page.

04-30-2010, 01:06 PM

Has anyone tired the XML Package above? Did it work well for you? Please let me know. Thanks for your time.

07-05-2010, 01:24 PM

Dragon: Why don't you try it for yourself? Takes two seconds to add, and two seconds to remove if you don't like it. Your posts seems to ignore the value of other people's time and contributions in a free open forum like this.

FYI, The xml package does work for me on MLv8. The only thing I noticed is that you have the self closing '/' for the canonical tag, but set the package output to "html" instead of "xml". For those of you generating xhtml pages, you should change this accordingly. (I always aim for my pages to validate 100% XHTML transitional).

Thanks BFG9000!

- Ben

EDITED: Found another useful modification. I added

Code:

and (/root/QueryString/pagenum > 1)

to the first rule in the above xml package. This forces pages with '?pagenum=1' to drop the pagenum in the canonical tag. Otherwise we still had the possibility of having the same page render two different canonical tags depending on how you navigated to it (with and without ?pagenum=1).

10-12-2010, 05:48 PM

The above XML package works great for category & product pages. (Thanks!

)

I added this to make it work for sections (departments) as well.

I tried adding this for section:

<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showsection.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum) and (/root/QueryString/pagenum > 1)">
<xsl:value-of select="$site"/>s-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sectionid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showsection.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/sectionid)">
<xsl:value-of select="$site"/>s-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sectionid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>

Now - how do I make it work for Topic pages as well?

Anybody know the answer to this?

10-13-2010, 06:33 AM

You could also use a url rewriter to 301 redirect any bogus entrances to your site

www.chocolate.co.uk/default.aspx -> 301 redirects to -> www.chocolate.co.uk

Also plumbed in the canonical xmlpackage as noted above - thanks!

10-25-2010, 04:11 PM

Your xlm code above is a great idea and I basically understand it.

I simply include this in the <head> section of my template files & it's done.
It will be trivial to modify it to handle manufacturers, genres, sections etc. if you have a need.

Let me see if I got this right, I just cut and paste it into the "template.ascx??? I tried it and it didn't crash, but am I missing some thing. Would you mind elaborating on how and where you installed the xml code above.

I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

Less (much less) than expert coder

Fred

10-28-2010, 09:36 AM

This is how i did it...

1. Pasted code samples into new xml file (XMLPackages folder) and called it Canonical.xml.config
2. Added an asp literal to each template.ascx in the head section

Code:

<head>
    <!-- meta tags here bla bla bla -->
    <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" />
    <asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text="(!XmlPackage Name='Canonical.xml.config'!)" />
     <!-- javascripts here bla bla bla -->
</head>

10-24-2011, 02:10 PM

First of all, thank you all for this it has fixed over 4500 errors on my SEOMoz account. Now to business, I am doing this throught the XMLPackage that was recommended and I have it working for product emailing and email errors. However, I am having trouble getting this to work with topic pages, are there any segustions?

Thank you in advance!

12-01-2011, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by gmaniac

First of all, thank you all for this it has fixed over 4500 errors on my SEOMoz account. Now to business, I am doing this throught the XMLPackage that was recommended and I have it working for product emailing and email errors. However, I am having trouble getting this to work with topic pages, are there any segustions?

Thank you in advance!

How did you make it work for the email errors?
can you please post the code?

Thank

10-01-2012, 05:31 PM

Either this does not work with MultiStore 9.3 or I'm doing something wrong... This is the xmlpackage as I'm using it based on the info in this thread:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<package version="2.1" displayname="BFGs canonical package" debug="false" includeentityhelper="false" allowengine="true">
    <PackageTransform>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:aspdnsf="urn:aspdnsf" exclude-result-prefixes="aspdnsf"> <xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />
		
        <xsl:template match="/">
		<xsl:param name="site">http://www.mydomain.com/</xsl:param>
		<xsl:param name="canonical">
			<xsl:choose>
				<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showproduct.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/productid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>p-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/productid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
				<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum) and (/root/QueryString/pagenum &gt; 1)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
				<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/categoryid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
				<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showsection.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum) and (/root/QueryString/pagenum &gt; 1)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>s-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sectionid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
				<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showsection.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/sectionid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>s-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sectionid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when> 
				<xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
			</xsl:choose>
		</xsl:param>

		<xsl:choose>
			<xsl:when test="$canonical != 0">
				<link rel="canonical" href="{$canonical}" />
			</xsl:when>
			<xsl:otherwise>
			</xsl:otherwise>
		</xsl:choose>
		</xsl:template>
        </xsl:stylesheet>
    </PackageTransform>
</package>

As far as I was able to test, the xmlpackage is running but the test conditions always fail and so the canonical url is always output as an empty string.

What can be wrong here:

Code:

<xsl:when test="(/root/System/PageName = 'showsection.aspx') and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum) and (/root/QueryString/pagenum &gt; 1)">

as well as in the other test conditions above?

Thanks for your help!

Fsantos

01-10-2013, 09:58 AM

Hi guys,
I have been trying to make BFG's script work in my storefront Version 9.1.0.1
Cant seem to make it go without crashing the page.
Andy seems to suggest that I could "cut and paste" this code into the head section of the "Template.Master" file which causes my version 9 page to throw the exception error.
Later in the forum thread, somone suggests saving the code below in an XML file, then calling the package from a statment in the "Template.Master". I experienced some success here, at least the page dident crash. Only problem was we ended up with plain text on our website display page, and no "Canonical" tag in the source.

Here is that text:

1. Pasted code samples into new xml file (XMLPackages folder) and called it Canonical.xml.config
2. Added an asp literal to each template.ascx in the head section

Code:
<head>

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" />
<asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text="(!XmlPackage Name='Canonical.xml.config'!)" />

</head>

We tried following all these suggestions and still cant seem to get this to work. We went back to our old storefront Version 8.2.3 and tried the same suggestions. And WALA it all works as advertised. almost no effort at all. Just "Cut and Paste"

Our storefront at http://www.davenporttractor.com seems to being peanolized by either Googles "Penguin" or the "Panda" update due to many products being paginated, causing a "duplicate Content" issue.

Any body want to make a few bucks helping us sort this out? I have been working on the project for 3 weeks and other work is realy starting to suffer.

Allen.Jarosz@ual.com

Originally Posted by BFG 9000

There are actually loads of ways to get to your homepage :-

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/
www.domain.com/default.aspx
www.domain.com/Default.aspx
www.domain.com/DEFAULT.aspx
www.domain.com/default.aspx?source=advert221
www.domain.com/default.aspx?affiliateid=10050
www.domain.com/default.aspx?skinid=1

etc. etc.

What you're suggesting is fine.

taking this a step further, I had an issue whereby some of our pages were indexed by google as (for example) :-

showcategory.aspx?CategoryID=617&SEName=cavilon-skin-care
showproduct.aspx?ProductID=1517&SEName=scotch-packing-tape-6-x-rolls-with-dispensers-50mm-x-20m
& we have some pages indexed as https rather than http.
etc. etc.

I created the following xmlpackage to deal with category & product pages.

HTML Code:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<package version="2.1" displayname="BFGs canonical package" debug="false" includeentityhelper="false" allowengine="true">
    <PackageTransform>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
                        xmlns:aspdnsf="urn:aspdnsf" exclude-result-prefixes="aspdnsf">
          <xsl:output method="html" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />

            <xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:param name="site">http://www.domain.co.uk/</xsl:param>

			<xsl:param name="canonical">
				<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/pagenum)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showcategory.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/categoryid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/categoryid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/System/PageName = 'showproduct.aspx' and boolean(/root/QueryString/productid)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>p-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/productid"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/sename"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
					<xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
				</xsl:choose>
			</xsl:param>

<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$canonical != 0">
<link rel="canonical" href="{$canonical}" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise></xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

            </xsl:template>
            
        </xsl:stylesheet>
    </PackageTransform>
</package>

I simply include this in the <head> section of my template files & it's done.
It will be trivial to modify it to handle manufacturers, genres, sections etc. if you have a need.

TTFN

BFG

01-10-2013, 10:11 AM

The exception being thrown is most likely due to the invalid Token structure you are using. Skin Tokens have taken a different format with the introduction of version 9. You will need to update your code.

Your version 8 code:

Code:

<asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text="(!XmlPackage Name='Canonical.xml.config'!)" />

Should look like this in version 9:

Code:

<asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text='<%$ Tokens: XmlPackage, Canonical.xml.config %>' />

I am purely speculating, considering I have not seen the exception error.

01-10-2013, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by GoVedia

The exception being thrown is most likely due to the invalid Token structure you are using. Skin Tokens have taken a different format with the introduction of version 9. You will need to update your code.

Your version 8 code:

Code:

<asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text="(!XmlPackage Name='Canonical.xml.config'!)" />

Should look like this in version 9:

Code:

<asp:Literal ID="litCanonical" runat="server" Text='<%$ Tokens: XmlPackage, Canonical.xml.config %>' />

I am purely speculating, considering I have not seen the exception error.

Thank you so much! that fixed the exception error, but still no progress on the Canonical tag showing up in the source file.
I know the code you included is working correctly, it calls the XML file from BFG9000 and I'm able to confim that.
So now the issue is that BFG9000 scriptlet is not posting back the "Conanical" tag information into the source file. Does something else need to be in my "Template.Master" file? perhaps the last few lines of BFG900's script? maybe somthing like this?
<xsl:when test="$canonical != 0">
<link rel="canonical" href="{$canonical}" />

I guess I'm not understanding the flow back from the XML snipet.

Please help

01-11-2013, 07:07 AM

I just had a very quick look at this.

It seems that the reason it's failing is that /root/System/PageName is now returning the requested page (p-123.prod-name.aspx) rather than showproduct.aspx & /root/QueryString is being returned completely empty.

I don't have time now to fix it - but it should be fairly easy to pull the first character of /root/System/PageName & use that instead - also should be possible to get the product or category id from somewhere else.

TTFN

BFG

03-04-2013, 01:33 AM

UPDATED for Version 9...

HTML Code:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<package version="2.1" displayname="BFGs canonical package" debug="false" includeentityhelper="false" allowengine="true">

    <query name="Products" rowElementName="Product">
        <sql>
            <![CDATA[
                SELECT ProductID, Name, SEName FROM Product WHERE ProductID = @ProductID
            ]]>
        </sql>
        <queryparam paramname="@ProductID"       paramtype="request" requestparamname="ProductID"       sqlDataType="int" defvalue="0"  validationpattern="^\d{1,10}$" />
    </query>
    <query name="Categories" rowElementName="Category">
        <sql>
            <![CDATA[
                SELECT CategoryID, Name, SEName FROM Category WHERE CategoryID = @CategoryID
            ]]>
        </sql>
        <queryparam paramname="@CategoryID"       paramtype="request" requestparamname="CategoryID"       sqlDataType="int" defvalue="0"  validationpattern="^\d{1,10}$" />
    </query>


    <PackageTransform>
        <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
                        xmlns:aspdnsf="urn:aspdnsf" exclude-result-prefixes="aspdnsf">
          <xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />

            <xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:param name="site">http://www.domain.co.uk/</xsl:param>

			<xsl:param name="canonical">
				<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="/root/Categories/Category/CategoryID > 0 and (/root/QueryString/pagenum > 1)"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Categories/Category/CategoryID"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Categories/Category/SEName"/>.aspx?pagenum=<xsl:value-of select="/root/QueryString/pagenum"/></xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/Categories/Category/CategoryID > 0"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>c-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Categories/Category/CategoryID"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Categories/Category/SEName"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
<xsl:when test="/root/Products/Product/ProductID > 0"><xsl:value-of select="$site"/>p-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Products/Product/ProductID"/>-<xsl:value-of select="/root/Products/Product/SEName"/>.aspx</xsl:when>
					<xsl:otherwise>0</xsl:otherwise>
				</xsl:choose>
			</xsl:param>

<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="$canonical != 0">
<link rel="canonical" href="{$canonical}" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise></xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>

            </xsl:template>
            
        </xsl:stylesheet>
    </PackageTransform>
</package>

TTFN

BFG

03-07-2013, 03:47 PM

Another options is to do it via IIS directly with a rewrite...that way the default.aspx version doesn't even "exist". Contact Jan at jsimacek@compunix.us for a quote/get this done.

Thread: Canonical tag & default.aspx and root duplicate content

Canonical tag & default.aspx and root duplicate content

Canonical tag question

XML package works - now how do I make it work for Sections & topic pages?

canonicall links

Topic Pages

How did you make it work for the email errors?

Canonical Tag in storefront V9

SKin Token

That helped fix the exception error but?