Canonical links faulty? after latest upgrade
Hi
I am interested to know if I've been doing something wrong and if the latest update to Designer Pro+ has caught me out. And if I'm going to have to make a lot of changes.
The problem has to do with canonical links and when I recently uploaded a section of my website every page was reported to have a broken link which turned out to be the canonical link. I made changes and the 'problem' is solved. No problems like this have ever been experienced before and I would like to 'do the right thing' so that more broken links don't appear when I change and publish other sections.
Background details : I have a couple of large websites which I create in sections (maybe not a great idea but it makes them manageable in Xara). The first 'Songs of the Inland Waterways' has all the songs in alphabetical sub-directories. The second is a family history website where different branches of the tree are in different sub-directories and this is where the problem appeared. The main directory has an index file which links to sub-directories. Each sub-directory has an index.htm file and pages which link to each other, <Next>, <Previous>, etc., back to the main index (e.g. http://www.mywebsitename.co.uk) and sometimes directly to pages in other sub-directories.
As an aside, I recently added a bit of code (.htaccess - kindly provided by Egg on this forum) to the website so http: addresses get redirected to https: addresses and that seems to work fine and I haven't changed all the links on every page individually.
When Xara Designer Pro+ (23.7.0.68699 SL x64 Feb 21 2024) was used to publish a recently created section of the website into directory Dronfield the link created was, for example for page francis_dronfield-a.htm,
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.mywebsitename.co.uk/francis_dronfield-a.htm" />
and this was the broken link as the page was actually in the Dronfield sub-directory.
Having looked up about canonical links I checked to see my publishing settings which were :
Sub-folder : mywebsitename/Dronfield
Website URL : www.mywebsitename.co.uk/ and these, or similar settings, have been used on my sites for years without a problem.
This resulted in all 21 pages in the subdirectory reporting broken links.
I changed the publishing settings to :
Sub-folder : mywebsitename/Dronfield
Website URL : https://www.mywebsitename.co.uk/Dronfield/
and the canonical link changed to the un-broken one :
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.mywebsitename.co.uk/Dronfield/francis_dronfield-a.htm" />
So, after all that, the questions are "Do I need to change the publishing details for every section of the site?" and "Was I doing something wrong which Xara was ignoring?"
I am happy to change things so they are 'right'; time consuming though it may, be but I'd like to be sure what 'right' is.
I'm sure if anyone answers this the answer will be a lot briefer than the question - sorry! Thanks in anticipation.
Ian
Re: Canonical links faulty? after latest upgrade
Ian, my guess is @Egg's .htaccess change is not accommodating sub-folders.
Not looked at anything but it is what I would check first.
Acorn
Re: Canonical links faulty? after latest upgrade
Ian, the Xara help states:
Quote:
Canonical Links
A canonical tag is a way of telling search engines which specific URL to treat as the master copy of a page, thereby preventing SEO problems caused by identical or "duplicate" content appearing on multiple URLs.
Publishing a web page to your domain might mean the same page is served when visiting the web page address with or without the www prefix and on both HTTP and HTTPS protocols. This can appear as duplicate content to search engines. Applying a canonical link will suggest which URL to show in search results and allow search engines to count links pointing at different versions as links to the canonical version.
A <link rel=canonical> is now automatically applied to the <head> of your web page when you publish to Xara Hosting / MAGIX Online World. If you are publishing to Other Web Host, enter the URL you want set as canonical in the Website URL field.
This means it is safer to use Website URL: www.mywebsitename.co.uk/Dronfield/ and not include the http:// or https:// protocol when you are publishing the sub-site 'Dronfield'.
Your Xara design Link from any other of your sites' designs to the 'francis_dronfield-a.htm' page should be a relative one of Link to Web or Email address;Dronfield/francis_dronfield-a.htm rather than the full URL 'https://www.mywebsitename.co.uk/Dronfield/francis_dronfield-a.htm'.
Acorn
Re: Canonical links faulty? after latest upgrade
Thank you very much Acorn for that explanation which I take note of and will implement whenever I reload a new section. I had read the Help guide lines - the words entered my brain but failed to translate into full understanding. Your interpretation has helped greatly.
Ian
