#10834 – Clarification on canonical url

Hi

I wonder if you are as complete as a specific extension.

These extensions cannot compute a correct canonical - because they do not crawl the entire website like 4SEO or Google do.

You should uninstall them immediately.

Can you let me know if there is anything that is not supported? and probably never will?

All this is 100% stupid. This is what you have when you don't know how to compute a correct canonical link. I have fought all my Joomla career (16 years now) against these so-called "canonical extensions".

Set custom paths (in Joomla! articles, categories, tags and menu items)
Override protocol and/or domain for single items (in Joomla! articles, categories, tags and menu items)

Not needed with 4SEO, all this is automatic.

Cleanup query strings

Automatic with 4SEO. Generally, it's wrong to remove query string.

Add query strings for pagination (i.e. ?start=4)

Not sure what that does. 4SEO handles paginated pages as needed:

I'm not sure how this works, but if there are certain urls that has
<link rel="canonical" href="https://clibre.eu/?start=30" class="4SEO_auto_canonical">
is that 4SEO does its job well but again Google does what it wants?

Yes, 4SEO is doing its job correctly. The canonical tag for the https://clibre.eu/?start=30 page should be https://clibre.eu/?start=30.

This is how pagination should be handled.

Custom handling of trailing slashes (in paths)

Automatic

Remove /index.php from path
Convert case (of paths) to lowercase or uppercase

Automatic

Redirect to Canonical URLs
…on protocol mismatch
…on domain mismatch
…on path mismatch
…on query string mismatch

Automatic (if enabled)

But then there are all the things that 4SEO do and all these extensions cannot do. For instance if you have 2 separate URLs for the same content (/category-a/category-b/some-article and /direct-menu-to-article-a) then 4SEO will see that and add a proper canonical.

You won't find anything better for Joomla canonical  in 2024.

Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr

Hi

but can I help Google take canonical URLs more into account?

You cannot. The only way to have more impact is to use redirects instead of canonicals. A canonical is only classified as a hint, an indication. A redirect will usually have stronger effect.

even if you find it stupid.

What's stupid is not you or you asking. It's all the "features" that these extensions have, which just prove that very few people have spent time studying what canonicals are and where and when to use them.

For Redirect to canonical URLs
…on the inadequacy of the protocols
…on domain mismatch
…on the inadequacy of the path
…in case of query string mismatchAutomatic (if enabled) ??
=> can you tell me 

There is nothing to say. The list above is wrong and is NOT a list of things you want. That's just a list of useless "features" that an extension vendor puts on their site because they have to put something on their site.

because I haven't found a setting for canonical urls

There's no setting for canonical because none are needed.

A page has a URL, say https://www.example.com/my-nice-article.

If the same page is displayed under any other URL than https://www.example.com/my-nice-article, then it should get a canonical to the original URL (https://www.example.com/my-nice-article). That's what 4SEO does. That does not require any setting. Just use the canonical URL for a page.

In addition:

- "on the inadequacy of the protocols": this must be a redirect, not a canonical

- "on the inadequacy of the path": automatic canonical by 4SEO, no setting needed

- "in case of query string mismatchAutomatic": automatic canonical by 4SEO, no setting needed

Glad that finally, you seem to integrate the dpcalendat urls well

I don't do anything about DPCalendar, and there was no change related to it or to the sitemap construction.

4SEO crawls all the pages on your site and search for links. If DPCalendar (or your template) builds proper links to events (ie using <a> tags), then 4SEO (and Google) will find the DP Calendar links and include them in the sitemap. 

If DPCalendar does not do that, then we can't find the links.

Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr

Hi

You're welcome! Closing this ticket now, feel free to open a new one as needed. If you do so, please mention this ticket number in the new one.

If you created any superadmin account for us, be sure to delete or block it now to avoid unnecessary risk in the future.

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Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr