Fixed Google+ / Google +1 button issues

[Dark Matter]

i did not get you... displaying the button is not the problem here. xenforo pages are simply not getting accepted by google+ and google +1 button.

I know the button is showing, that's not what I mean. I'm taking about just trying different +1 code to see if the button still fails when clicked on the forums. There's more than one way to show the +1 button in XenForo, other than the method Kier has introduced.

 

[Chromaniac]

well i have tried the official code google provides. that does not work.

i have used a browser extension

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bkeiokdfjgnaglohebonlmpimnpinahd

(this works everywhere else) even that does not work on xenforo forum pages.

the last option i had was google search result pages:

even that does not work. so the button is not the problem. something else is!

 

[ragtek]

I had a talk with somebody who had the same problem on his page, and he said that his canonical urls where the problem....
I didn't check the xf code and don't know if that's the problem, but maybe it helps to locate the problem^^

 

[Kier]

The absence of any decent method by which one can report bugs to Google is a serious problem. When the +1 button API first became available, there was a serious error with its HTML 5 implementation, such that one had to use invalid HTML (contrary to their documentation) in order to make it work. I had to rely on a Twitter campaign to get the issue known and hope that someone in a position of power would notice.

• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/76227354069966848
• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/76233350574112768
• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/77742103978979328
• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/78578077579485184
• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/78581840117633025
• http://twitter.com/#!/KierDarby/status/80553193376972800

 

[Chromaniac]

ah. google +1 takes into consideration the canonical tag on the web page.

this page on the thread lists this as the canonical link:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/google-1-button-issues.17803/page-5

this canonical link seems to be accurate and is accessible. so this is weird. is there any way to disable canonical links in xenforo?

ok experimented removing the canonical tag from the template. even that does not change anything.

 

[Kenneth Wyatt]

i had posted what i thought was a solution, but the problem decided to pop back up again, so i removed my solution...
it seems that the title of the page might have something to do with it...i changed the title with no luck, but when i shortened the title down dramatically, it allowed me to +1 it, then i went to my google profile to make sure it worked...and it did...

then i went back to my page, clicked the +1 button to uncheck it, and that worked, then i went to click it again and it turned red...still no solid solution

 

[Chromaniac]

haha. long title tag should not cause any problems. i have +1ed enough threads on wordpress blogs and vB forums that have long titles.

 

[Kier]

I may be on to something - hope to have some news for you very shortly.

 

[Chromaniac]

awesome. thanks for the update! i would love to know why this peculiar behavior is happening.

 

[Kier]

Yep, I've found it.

As you know, XenForo makes use of HTML 5 Microdata in its markup in order to identify the breadcrumb and other page elements to search engines etc.

Google's use of HTML 5 Microdata is changing rapidly as it recognises more of the syntax, and as a result it can interpret pages differently. It would appear that a change (at Google) late last week resulted in Google being unable to parse the microdata on XenForo pages, because we repeat some of the breadcrumb microdata in the bottom breadcrumb, after its primary inclusion in the top breadcrumb.

Removing all the microdata from the bottom breadcrumb has resolved the issue, and as you can see, you can now +1 pages on XenForo.com to your heart's content without errors.

Stay tuned for more updates.

 

[Chromaniac]

oh right. works here now for me!

google plus also now accept URLs from this forum.

 

[Paul B]

Mystery solved as to why it still works on my home page too....because I have removed the breadcrumbs.

Shame I didn't notice that earlier as it's the only difference between that page and all other pages on my site.

 

[Chromaniac]

haha. URL changed so my +1 disappeared. i was worried that the problem had returned.

on that note, i have noticed that facebook like handle URL changes. google +1 does not.

 

[Kier]

In case you are interested:

 

[Kenneth Wyatt]

so how should we properly remove/edit this problem in our code?

 

[Paul B]

It's fixed in 1.0.4.

Or, you can apply the edits shown above to the breadcrumb template.

I would just advise you to wait for the new release though.

 

[Kenneth Wyatt]

I guess that's what I was trying to ask...I see the screenshot and the green and red highlighted code, but no instructions...is that code to be removed, modified, or did I miss something? Thanks.

 

[Paul B]

Red is the current code in 1.0.3, green is the new code in 1.0.4.

It's just being shown as a reference as to what has been changed.

 

[Kenneth Wyatt]

Ok thanks

 

[James]

If you ask Kier nicely, he might post the code for you to replace your old code with