Re: an attempt to fix the Google search problem

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Peter Eisentraut <
peter(dot)eisentraut(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:

> It is a well-known problem that a Google search for something in the
> PostgreSQL documentation will usually return hits in old documentation
> versions first, because those pages have been around for the longest.
>
> I believe I have a promising fix for that. By adding a <link
> rel="canonical"> to the documentation pages that point to the "current"
> version, search engines will be encouraged to return the current version
> search results.
>
> I had heard that the Django project had the same problem and got this
> solution from there. See for example the source of this page:
> <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/db/models/>. Here is
> also some information from Google about this:
> <https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-
> relcanonical.html>
>
> I think this is worth trying. A one-line patch is attached.
>

By that article you linked, it's important not to link to pages that don't
exist. So we should at least verify that the page does exist in the current
version (the same way that we do for the links at the top of the pages for
old versions). IIRC someone (sorry, this is a long time ago, can't
remember who or why) mentioned that the pages can get severely punished if
the canonical link goes to a 404.

We did try this at some point ages and ages ago and it didn't help, but I
agree it's probably worth another try. But we definitely need to be careful
not to destroy existing google ranking.

And FWIW, the django way isn't particularly good either. For example a
google for "django 1.8 models" only gives me the 1.10 documentation. But
that may still be the lesser of the two evils.

Also, when I search for it, I always get the greek version (el) first
(though it's in english), followed by japanese. The actual page to look
for doesn't show up until the 5th spot. Which goes to prove that no way
really works *well* :S

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/