Drupal Path module SEO problem
public
group: Search Engine Optimization
J. Cohen - Sat, 2008-06-28 22:08
If using the Path Module (which is standard for SEO), the URLs become case insensitive even on *nix servers. That means you can get duplicate content if people accidentally link to versions of your URLs with different cases.
Example:
- drupal.org/handbook
- drupal.org/hAnDbOoK
Just something to watch out for until it's fixed.
I added an issue here:
http://drupal.org/node/276201
perhaps globalredirect can help
Maybe we should add something to globalredirect so that it will do a 301 to the "right" version of the url...
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Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
global redirect
Good idea... that way when the Path Module is updated, any incorrect links wouldn't break.
Right...
So, I think I understand this, but what, if anything, is the temporary workaround?
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems
path module workaround
To keep things simple for me and visitors, I generally only use lowercase letters in the URLs. The only problem would be if someone linked to different case URLs either in internal links or from external sites.
I think this would cause the most problem on larger sites.
I worked on one Drupal site where they had created views that had weird arguments something like example.com/page/Tag1+Tag2
There were a lot of users so imagine if users started creating links to
example.com/page/tag1+tag2
(or vice versa)
The paginated URLs keep the case of the first URL, so example.com/page/Tag1+Tag2 would have two URLs with different cases, and so would every paginated version:
example.com/page/Tag1+Tag2?page=25
example.com/page/tag1+tag2?page=25
etc.
on a large site with a lot of pagination that could be a significant SEO problem.
Well...
I suppose this is only a problem if people are creating links manually, right? I would think that this does minimise the likelihood of these links being created, but I see where you're going with that.
Perhaps it's time to look at the linking system again? I have been told that Flexifilter can't handle inline-ing things like node references and image fields, which is a pain, but perhaps there is another way to achieve this? I think that would go a long way towards standardising any/all internal links?
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems
I suppose this is only a
I think using all lowercase reduces the chance of people typing in URLs in the wrong case -- no need to remember which case to use.
I would tend to type in example.com/about from memory instead of example.com/About. Maybe that's just me though...
Well...
... yeah of course I agree, but I had assumed we were talking about a scenario where "content editors" were not the main cause of the problem. On social sites, and indeed on any third party site, this is a potential issue (assuming you're correct in what you're saying - it's new to me but I'm not arguing) so I was really just referring to "users" as opposed to "editors", if you follow me? :)
Web Development in Nottingham, UK by Kineta Systems
experiment
I'm going to test something with Google and URLs. I'll post the results here in a few days if I find anything interesting.