4 ms·

That's not the standard SEO way of flagging a canonical URL.

rmbyrro 4y ago
Who defines this standard? You may argue it's not common, but I'd expect a standard to be determined by an authoritative and fairly representative body. Not by HN forum or a private company in isolation.
- richardwhiuk 4y ago
  Sure - there's an RFC - https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6596 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6596
  - docandrew 4y ago
    Technically the parent’s point still stands - this is an informational RFC, not a standard.
    - richardwhiuk 4y ago
      It's also documented in Section 4.6.7 of WHATWG's HTML 5 standard if that makes you happier - https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#linkTypes https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#linkTypes
      - docandrew 4y ago
        Doesn’t really make me happier or unhappier, was merely making a point that RFCs come in different flavors, only one of which is a “standard” [1]. Not sure why it touched a nerve with so many people. 1. https://www.ietf.org/standards/rfcs/ https://www.ietf.org/standards/rfcs/
        richardwhiuk 4y ago
        In practice, all RFCs are standards documents.
- andy_ppp 4y ago
  There are no standards here - the world of SEO is a weird place of guesswork and testing what works. I think the Google recommendation [1] is still to use rel=canonical however who knows why this noindex is added to alternative duplicate pages - it might be that the SEO person at Slack knows what they are doing. I think the accusation of foul play is somewhat overblown given there is a version that does not contain noindex. [1] https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/...
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    Forget about all that; you can just check Google to see if the page is indexed. It is. Using this query: site:slack.com inurl:/blog/news/slack-security-update https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslack.com+inurl%3A%2Fblog%2Fnews%2Fslack-security-update https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslack.com+inurl%3A%2F...
  - richardwhiuk 4y ago
    There explicitly is a standard here, which is used by Google, Yahoo and Bing - see appendix A of RFC 6596.
    - andy_ppp 4y ago
      I understand that, but what I’m saying is that SEO itself is often based on what actually works. This noindex of non canonical resources is likely to be that not an attempt to hide things from Google.

Who defines this standard? You may argue it's not common, but I'd expect a standard to be determined by an authoritative and fairly representative body. Not by HN forum or a private company in isolation.

richardwhiuk 4y ago
Sure - there's an RFC - https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6596 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6596
- docandrew 4y ago
  Technically the parent’s point still stands - this is an informational RFC, not a standard.
  - richardwhiuk 4y ago
    It's also documented in Section 4.6.7 of WHATWG's HTML 5 standard if that makes you happier - https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#linkTypes https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/links.html#linkTypes
    - docandrew 4y ago
      Doesn’t really make me happier or unhappier, was merely making a point that RFCs come in different flavors, only one of which is a “standard” [1]. Not sure why it touched a nerve with so many people. 1. https://www.ietf.org/standards/rfcs/ https://www.ietf.org/standards/rfcs/
      - richardwhiuk 4y ago
        In practice, all RFCs are standards documents.
andy_ppp 4y ago
There are no standards here - the world of SEO is a weird place of guesswork and testing what works. I think the Google recommendation [1] is still to use rel=canonical however who knows why this noindex is added to alternative duplicate pages - it might be that the SEO person at Slack knows what they are doing. I think the accusation of foul play is somewhat overblown given there is a version that does not contain noindex. [1] https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/...
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  Forget about all that; you can just check Google to see if the page is indexed. It is. Using this query: site:slack.com inurl:/blog/news/slack-security-update https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslack.com+inurl%3A%2Fblog%2Fnews%2Fslack-security-update https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslack.com+inurl%3A%2F...
- richardwhiuk 4y ago
  There explicitly is a standard here, which is used by Google, Yahoo and Bing - see appendix A of RFC 6596.
  - andy_ppp 4y ago
    I understand that, but what I’m saying is that SEO itself is often based on what actually works. This noindex of non canonical resources is likely to be that not an attempt to hide things from Google.