When sorting by “Latest” in a Discourse category, the URL adds “/l/latest” but the canonical tag points to the base category URL. Sunny observed that Google is indexing both URLs, suggesting two possible reasons: Google disregards the canonical tag due to changing content, or Google favors static-looking URLs. Sunny notes that this issue is different from WordPress category pages and suggests that Google is not respecting the canonical tag on Discourse. Possible solutions include using URL parameters in Google Search Console or canonical tags, but the use of “/l/latest” instead of a “?” tag may be causing the issue. codinghorror and EducatorWaji initially saw no problem, but Sunny clarifies the issue.
Upon clicking “Latest” in a category view, I am seeing that discourse adds “/l/latest” to the page URL.
However the canonical points to the base category URL.
Google seems to be indexing both for us.
There could be two reasons for this
a) Google thinks that the content on the page changed and hence disregards the canonical tag
b) Google gives a higher signal to static looking urls (since we don’t use # / or ? alone to sort the page)
Anyone has ideas on how to deal with this?
I do not see a problem in your screenshot.
As @codinghorror said. We don’t see a problem here. This typically happens when a content exists in two pages of the website.
In wordpress, this happens when you post something in a category and doesn’t post anything else for a long period of time.
Google isn’t respecting canonical tag on Discourse, that is a problem.
@EducatorWaji - Not the same case. WP category pages exist as a separate page, in this case we are sorting a list of items on the same page. Google allows either using URL parameters in search console to indicate to Google about the behaviour of this parameters (Spring cleaning: the URL Parameters tool | Google Search Central Blog | Google for Developers) and as an alternative you can use canonical.
Sorting is covered under this. But in all examples that Google gives, a ? tag is used at the end of the original URL. Hence my original hypothesis.
