Canonical Links Coding Help

[Sail and Ski]

Hi – Can anyone help?

I have used some of the coding mentioned in (http://community.sellerdeck.com/arch...p/t-54467.html) in order to get my Canonical re-directs correct.

I started off by trying to insert the following code to put a canonical link on my filtered page results in to the standard meta tags page on the design tree and it came back incorrect but did insert it:

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PageType%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20%22Section%22" >
<link rel="canonical" href="<actinic:variable name="CatalogURL" /><actinic:variable name="SectionPageName" />" />
</actinic:block>

After reading the above mentioned post I changed the code to:

<actinic:block if="%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PageType%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20%22Section%22%29" >
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22SectionPaginationIncludeFullPage%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%201" >
<actinic:block if="%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22SectionPaginationCurrentPageIndex%22%20%2f%3e%20%3e%200%29" >
<!-- Tell search engines how to index paginated sections -->
<link rel="canonical" href="<actinic:block php="true">echo '<actinic:variable name="CatalogURL" encoding="perl" selectable="false" />' . basename('<actinic:variable name=SectionPageName" encoding="perl" selectable="false" />');</actinic:block>">
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

And it worked – Thanks Peblaco!

However my question is that I am trying to put these links on pages so that my site knows to redirect on pages that have #SID numbers on the end of the URL. So I presumed that I would place the below code on to the same page below the above code

I therefore tried placing the below code in to the standard meta tags page presuming it would work and it doesn’t – am I simply placing the code in the wrong place, wrong page or is the code wrong for single product per page??

<actinic:block if="%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PageType%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20%22Product%20Page%22%29" >
<!-- Tell search engines how to index paginated sections -->
<link rel="canonical" href="<actinic:block php="true">echo '<actinic:variable name="CatalogURL" encoding="perl" selectable="false" />' . basename('<actinic:variable name=ProductPageName" encoding="perl" selectable="false" />');</actinic:block>">
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

[peblaco]

Thanks but also credit to Norman at Drillpine who posted the original code. Have you checked the default Standard Meta Tags layout it already has pagination canonical tags. Note if you add a canonical tag to sections with the section html link, it does not work for 2013 filtered pages which use a cgi-bin link so you would need to change the code. The #SID these are anchor tags see: filtering Page Name

[Buzby]

Just a quick question on this subject.

Are canonical links hard coded into Sellerdeck 2013 for CGI links and filtered results, or is this something I need to change?

[peblaco]

There are canonical links in the default "Standard Meta Tags" layout relating to paginated sections. But not for other pages. Also the marketing list links and fragment links use cgi-bin links to sections and products which can be viewed as two urls by search engines so to get around this the SellerDeck 2013 default layouts now have added nofollow on these links. If you add any extra canonical links yourself such as for filtered pages bear in mind the information above.

[Buzby]

Just another thought!

if you removed the no follow links from marketing products, could you not just put a canonical link on the page looping to its static page name? That way if google trawled a cgi linked page then the link would also be pointing to the static page.

This seems far too easy that I am sure I am missing something

[peblaco]

That was suggested, see the reply from SellerDeck here.

[Jo@apartyshop]

As the canonical problem does appear to be a genuine problem to all site owners, is Sellerdeck thinking of making a 'fix' to the next release?

[peblaco]

I think they are looking at it.

[Buzby]

The work around is fairly easy so I wouldn't have thought that it was top priority.

There are probably more pressing issues to be sorted that don't have workarounds like the incorrect image being used in filtered results on some layouts.

[peblaco]

I started off by trying to insert the following code to put a canonical link on my filtered page results in to the standard meta tags

Note if you use SellerDeck filtering “make filtering the default view” the page link changes to use a cgi-bin link and needs 301 redirects or a canonical tag, however the canonical tag cannot use variables store folder and page name for filtered pages as it causes an issue for search engine listings as they are unable to index the content. See: http://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?t=55375