Fixed Google reports Content Tag pages and Media ategories as duplicate title tags (but not thread pages)

[Alpha1]

Google Webmaster Tools sees XenForo Content Tag pages as separate pages, instead of the continuation of the same content list. GWT reports all second pages of content tag lists as 'Pages with duplicate title tags'.

Example of tag pages Google reports as 'Pages with duplicate title tags':
/tags/lean/
/tags/lean/page-2

The same happens for XFMG categories. Example of XFMG pages Google reports as 'Pages with duplicate title tags':
/media/categories/ldd.515/
/media/categories/ldd.515/?page=2
/media/categories/ldd.515/?page=3
/media/categories/ldd.515/?page=4
/media/categories/ldd.515/?page=5
/media/categories/ldd.515/?page=6

In contrast: this does not happen for XenForo thread pages, or else I would have a hundreds of thousands of thread pages listed.
So it seems to me that there must be a difference in approach between the way thread pages are handles and how tag/media pages are handled.

Are these pages not canonicalized?

 

[Chris D]

In contrast: this does not happen for XenForo thread pages, or else I would have a hundreds of thousands of thread pages listed.
So it seems to me that there must be a difference in approach between the way thread pages are handles and how tag/media pages are handled.

Are these pages not canonicalized?

Thread pages (beyond page 1) do have "| Page X" appended to the page title, so that's likely the reason why.

 

[dutchbb]

Would it be an option to add this to tag_view template? (if correct)

<xen:container var="$head.canonical">
<link rel="canonical" href="{xen:link 'canonical:tags', $tag, 'page={$page}'}" /></xen:container>

Same could be done for categorie pages of media? And comments?

 

[dutchbb]

Tested it here and works
https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/rel-prev-next/

This is important for seo i think because google already sees tag pages as duplicates (i noindex them). Categorie pages would be the same, should be added to all paginated pages.

 

[dutchbb]

On the other hand it already has rel next and previous. Google suggests one of the options.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en

 

[dutchbb]

I checked in my webmaster tools and could not find any duplicate tags or categories.

Only duplicate threads and these strange ones below:

/page-158?order=reply_count&direction=asc
/page-158?order=view_count

/page-141?order=post_date&page=141
/page-141?order=title&direction=asc&page=141

/poll/results?poll_response_id=24756
/poll/results?poll_response_id=24757

I would suggest adding nofollow to the sorting links and poll results?

for order= -> thread_list template

<dl class="sectionHeaders">
        <dt class="posterAvatar"><a><span>{xen:phrase sort_by}:</span></a></dt>
        <dd class="main">
            <a href="{xen:link forums, $forum, '_params={$orderParams.title}'}" class="title" rel="nofollow"><span>{xen:phrase title}{xen:helper sortArrow, $order, $orderDirection, title}</span></a>
            <a href="{xen:link forums, $forum, '_params={$orderParams.post_date}'}" class="postDate" rel="nofollow"><span>{xen:phrase start_date}{xen:helper sortArrow, $order, $orderDirection, post_date}</span></a>
        </dd>
        <dd class="stats">
            <a href="{xen:link forums, $forum, '_params={$orderParams.reply_count}'}" class="major" rel="nofollow"><span>{xen:phrase replies}{xen:helper sortArrow, $order, $orderDirection, reply_count}</span></a>
            <a href="{xen:link forums, $forum, '_params={$orderParams.view_count}'}" class="minor" rel="nofollow"><span>{xen:phrase views}{xen:helper sortArrow, $order, $orderDirection, view_count}</span></a>
        </dd>
        <dd class="lastPost"><a href="{xen:link forums, $forum, '_params={$orderParams.last_post_date}'}" rel="nofollow"><span>{xen:phrase last_message}{xen:helper sortArrow, $order, $orderDirection, last_post_date}</span></a></dd>
    </dl>

 

[dutchbb]

Correction: Looks like those duplicate pages are caused by a jump to page add-on. The sorting links have rel canonical on them so should not be a problem.

All other pages i checked have also rel canonical on them and paginated pages have rel next and prev (tag pages for example) so are correct.

 

[Mike]

I've added the "Page X" differentiation to the tag and media category pages now.

Note that this doesn't really have anything to do with canonicalization or the like. It's generally just an internal tool to make you aware of the duplicate titles in case they're unexpected. With multi-page threads (all content being under the thread title), duplicate page titles isn't really unexpected, though having the page number there isn't generally problematic either.

 

[Alpha1]

Google marking tag pages as 'Duplicate without user-selected canonical' and is removing the pages from its index after the latest Google update.

I don't think this is fixed in 1.5.21