Fixed Unstable URL parameter order in forums with prefixes and a "Thread list date limit"

[Steffen]

Affected version

2.1.0

Scenario: You have a forum with prefixes and a "Thread list date limit" (such a forum doesn't seem to exist here on XenForo.com).

Let 42 be the last initially reachable page. Then, on

https://example.org/community/forums/my-forum.123/page-42?prefix_id=1

there is a "Show older items" link that points to

https://example.org/community/forums/my-forum.123/page-42?prefix_id=1&no_date_limit=1

whose canonical URL is

https://example.org/community/forums/my-forum.123/page-42?no_date_limit=1&prefix_id=1

Notice that the two parameters "no_date_limit" and "prefix_id" have been swapped. This is not ideal from an SEO perspective (yeah, Google will see and use the canonical URL but having to request two different URLs for the same content wastes crawl budget). Could you please choose one order and stick with it if it's not too complicated?

 

[Chris D]

This is not ideal from an SEO perspective

I'm not actually sure it would make a difference. Can you elaborate?

 

[Steffen]

If Googlebot has to request two URLs with the same contents (the only difference being the URL parameter order) then that's a small waste of the crawl budget that Googlebot has allocated to your site. If there was only one URL then Googlebot could have spent its time crawling another URL of your site that actually has a chance of getting indexed.

This is not a big issue, that's why I said "if it's not too complicated". On the other hand, small stuff adds up. I've found this issue (and others in the past) using a tool for technical SEO analysis which we've been using for some years (Audisto).

 

[XF Bug Bot]

Thank you for reporting this issue. It has now been resolved and we are aiming to include it in a future XF release (2.1.1).

Change log:

Swap order of filters and additional params on the forum_view "Show older items" link.

Any changes made as a result of this issue being resolved may not be rolled out here until later.