The new talk of the SEO world is ‘Canonical URL‘. What is canonical URL? This is the definition given in Google’s Webmaster Central Blog…

a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that’s accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version.

Emphasis mine

It is very easy to specify the canonical URL of a page – all you have to do is add this line in the head section…

<link rel="canonical" href="http://binnyva.com/" />

The purpose of this tag is to prevent the problem of duplicate content.

The best thing about this tag is that all three major search engines(Google, Yahoo and MS Live) support this initiative.

WordPress

If you are on wordpress, this tag can be integrated into your theme easily. There is a plugin to do the job for you – but you don’t need a plugin to do something as simple as this.

header.php

Go to the theme folder in wordpress(wp-content/themes/<theme_name>) and open the file header.php in your favorite editor. Now find the line…

</head>

and add the following code before that line…

<?php if ( is_singular() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" />
<?php } ?>

Now, it should look something like this…

<?php if ( is_singular() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" />
<?php } ?>
</head>

That’s it – you are done! Save the file and upload it to your server.

This fix will add the canonical URL tag to all the posts and pages of your blog. If you want to see a blog that have implemented this fix, take a look at the source of this page.

Related Links

• Canonical URL
• What Is A Canonical URL?
• Canonical URLs To Avoid Duplicate Content
• Learn about the Canonical Link Element in 5 minutes

I am looking at some spam I received at LinDesk. These are not your average spam – they are real good. I even let one through before I understood they were spam.

• spartan300 | tcssey@aol.com | dolcemp3.com | IP: 64.12.116.138
  Hhmmm,, this sounds good. but I not yet into upgrading my Fedora7 to 8. i’m not that afraid of changes, but I might incur another error with my linux. I still have lot of work to do, maybe i’ll try this later next week. Thanks though for this blog.
  In article Sound Issue in Fedora 8
• 2cool2sexy | tcssey@aol.com | dolcemp3.com | IP: 64.12.116.138
  Have you checked on its system requirements? You should try checking of their site. http://banshee-project.org/
  I believe there are helpdesk there that can support you.
  In article Banshee – Music Management and Playback for GNOME
• audio-fanatic | tcssey@aol.com | dolcemp3.com | IP: 64.12.116.138
  another nice review here Lin. You really adore using Linux-based software? I think this mp3 software is the one fit for my notebook.
  In article Audacious Media Player

First of all, do you agree with me? Are these spam?

The reason why I think they are spam are the following…

• Same URL and Email – but different names.
• Zero content comments – they add no value to the post.
• My previous experience has taught me that comments with @aol.com email addresses are often spam.
• This guy has only commented on MP3 related posts – his URL leads to an MP3 site.

The reason why they may not be spam are just as valid.

• These comments are written by humans – not bots.
• The writer of the second comment(about banshee) has obviously read the post.
• The commenter has at least a passing knowledge of Linux and Linux softwares.

So, have you received any spam like this – comments that you are unsure about? These three comments are still in my moderation queue. I need advice on how to deal with them.

I could let them through – if no one looks closely, they will think these are actual comments. That will give the articles an appearance of popularity. It is a good thing for me. But I have a zero tolerance policy towards spam. If the comment is a spam, I will not allow it on my site. Its a matter of principle.

I have a new blog – LinDesk. LinDesk concentrates on the use of Linux on the Desktop. I am trying to keep it distro agnostic – but there is a slight leaning towards Fedora – as it is the distro I am using. Also, you might find a disproportionate amount of articles about KDE.

Actually this blog has been around for some time. The first article appeared on April 8. But I did not announce it so that there can be a build up of articles before it goes public.

Take a look at LinDesk – and if you are a fan of the Linux operating system, subscribe.

Some Popular Posts

• Konqueror – A Killer App for Linux
• Konqueror, The Browser
• Using Konqueror as an FTP Client
• Internet Connection Sharing using iptables
• How to Mount ISO/MDF Images in Linux
• Top 5 Video Players in Linux
• Wesnoth – The Battle for Productivity

So what do you guys think of the new blog? Is it a good move? Or am I moving towards an early burnout?

Welcome, one and all, to my new ..er.. old blog. Well, new location of the old blog. Liked the theme? All the WordPress themes were kinda beautiful. So I took the default wordpress theme(Kuberic, I think it was called) and, for the lack of a better term, desecrated it. You are viewing the results.

The Past

For those who are new to this blog, a bit of history – I have a blog at http://binnyva.blogspot.com/. I recently decided that I should move the blog to one of my own servers. I did not import the old posts to this site due to the issue of duplicate content.

The Future

From the next post onwards, the post will be duplicated here and in my Blogger site. At the end of this month, I will abandon the old blog and focus on this one.

Abandon does not mean that I will delete the blog or its contents – that will stay. I will stop posting there. I will still carry out some maintenance tasks like weeding out the spam, repling to comments etc. However, from next month, no more new content will appear there.

The Present

In short, Welcome All!