Search Console: Duplicates

Phoca Download - download manager
wdburgdorf
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Joined: 20 Mar 2013, 00:57

Search Console: Duplicates

Post by wdburgdorf »

Hi,

I am trying to fix issues found on Google Search Console. The biggest issue currently is duplicates, and these are almost all Phoca Download documents. The reason is that all downloads actually appear twice: Once for each language of the site.
The documents are the same for both languages, but the paths to the download pages are different. Therefore each document has two paths.
Example:
thesite.com/customer-center/downloads/category/29-the-document?download=31:my-datasheet
thesite.com/de/kundencenter/downloads/category/29-the-document?download=31:my-datasheet

Since no canonicals are possible for documents (I believe), the solution would be to have always the same download link for the same document, whatever the path to the download page is.

Is it possible to set up Phoca Download like that?

Thank you!

Kind regards,
Ralf
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Jan
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Re: Search Console: Duplicates

Post by Jan »

Hi, Phoca Download does not create menu links so it does not decide which links are created or which links display the document. When the ID of the document is checked because of download - only ID and category ID is checked not the language, so this is maybe why the document is accessible throw the not language and langauge SEF link. The question is, if there will be check for language, does it solve it anything, because it just does not prevent from creating both formats of the link :idea:

Jan
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wdburgdorf
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Posts: 13
Joined: 20 Mar 2013, 00:57

Re: Search Console: Duplicates

Post by wdburgdorf »

Hi Jan,
Thanks for your reply. I believe it could be possible to redirect all requests to documents to a single URL in htaccess, that could solve the duplicates. Especially since there could be more URLs directing to downloads, I already fixed the sitemap to not contain additional URLs that exist already.
The ideal solution, I think, would be to be able to define a canonical link for each document in the document settings. I don't know if that's feasible and would not be too much work for you to implement. But then, I assume that there are many sites that have this issue, perhaps not aware of it.
I found that the lates version has "new parameter: Render Canonical URL". I have not tried, not sure if it helps. If it just adds the meta parameter to every page, it would not be useful. If I could set it myself, this could be what I'm looking for. Will try soon.
Cheers,
Ralf
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Jan
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Re: Search Console: Duplicates

Post by Jan »

Ok
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