WP Garage » duplicate content http://wpgarage.com wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips Tue, 15 May 2012 11:49:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 How to Change Permalink Structure in WordPress without Duplicate Content http://wpgarage.com/plugins/how-to-change-permalink-structure-in-wordpress-without-duplicate-content/ http://wpgarage.com/plugins/how-to-change-permalink-structure-in-wordpress-without-duplicate-content/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:19:00 +0000 Rebecca Markowitz http://wordpressgarage.com/plugins/how-to-change-permalink-structure-in-wordpress-without-duplicate-content/ Recently we had a client who wanted to change their Permalink structure from Old Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/ to: New Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%/ so that they would qualify for Google News. Apparently you need at least 3 digits in your URL in order to qualify for Google News. I wanted to simply change the Permalink structure [...]

This post was originally published at How to Change Permalink Structure in WordPress without Duplicate Content on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

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Recently we had a client who wanted to change their Permalink structure from

Old Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/

to:

New Permalink structure: /%author%/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%/

so that they would qualify for Google News. Apparently you need at least 3 digits in your URL in order to qualify for Google News.

I wanted to simply change the Permalink structure by going to Settings>Permalinks in WordPress. However, the problem is that Google sees 2 URLs for the same post which could cause Google to penalize you for duplicate content:

Google would see both the old and new Permalink structure for the same content:

For example, Google would see:

(old) http://example.com/Rebecca/News/MyPost/

and

(new) http://example.com/Rebecca/News/MyPost/222

So we need to make sure the old Permalink structure has a 301 redirect to the new Permalink structure.

Thankfully, after trying many plugins, we finally found and successfully implemented this plugin: Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin

The directions on the site are very old and quite confusing.

Here’s how to use Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin

  1. Download, Install and activate the plugin
  2. Go to Settings>Permalinks and copy down your old permalink structure
  3. While you’re in Settings>Permalinks, change the Permalink structure to your new permalink structure
  4. Go to Settings>Permalink Redirect and where it says “Old Permalink Structures”, paste in your old permalink structure

That’s it.

This post was originally published at How to Change Permalink Structure in WordPress without Duplicate Content on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

]]> http://wpgarage.com/plugins/how-to-change-permalink-structure-in-wordpress-without-duplicate-content/feed/ 12 Canonical URLs to help WordPress duplicate content issue http://wpgarage.com/news-views/canonical-urls-to-help-wordpress-duplicate-content-issue/ http://wpgarage.com/news-views/canonical-urls-to-help-wordpress-duplicate-content-issue/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:35:43 +0000 Rebecca Markowitz http://wordpressgarage.com/?p=459 Fancy words aside, a canonical URL is Google’s way of identifying a “preferred” URL for your posts to avoid duplicate content. Duplicate content is generally defined as “separate web pages with substantially the same content, which may attract a penalty from search engines.” WordPress is often criticized for having duplicate content since new posts appear [...]

This post was originally published at Canonical URLs to help WordPress duplicate content issue on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

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Fancy words aside, a canonical URL is Google’s way of identifying a “preferred” URL for your posts to avoid duplicate content. Duplicate content is generally defined as “separate web pages with substantially the same content, which may attract a penalty from search engines.”

WordPress is often criticized for having duplicate content since new posts appear on many pages including category pages, archive pages, feeds, and trackbacks.  While this helps visitors find the content they are looking for, it confuses search engines, forcing them to “choose” which URL to serve in search results.

And so… Google (Yahoo and Microsoft too)  recently came out with a new link tag to help with the duplicate content issue which can be added to the <head> section of the duplicate content URLs.

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

But honestly, who can be bothered to go into the <head> for every post. Luckily, there are 2 WordPress plugins that are here to help:

Yoast adds rel=”canonical” links to your blogs <head> section

SEO No duplicate – This simple plugin helps you easily tell the search engine bots the preferred version of a page by specifying the canonical properly within your head tag.

For more information, read the official announcement from Google.

This post was originally published at Canonical URLs to help WordPress duplicate content issue on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

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