Talk tab uses same page headers, and search engines see duplicated meta tags and titles

I don't see any correlation between the HTML tags used by the module, and the error about duplicated meta tags the search engines report.

Duplicated meta tags simply means there some are Drupal pages that have the same meta tags; as you are using nodewords.module is probable that there are more nodes with the same meta tags, or the same node is accessible using an alias, and the normal URL for a node (node/<nid> where <nid> is the ID of the node).

The duplicated title error given by some search engines (but it's usually Google to report it) it's because effectively there are different pages in Drupal that have the same page title. This happens in particular with pages which are shown together, and each page is a different tab; it also happen when the page contains a table that is sortable.

Yes.Got the problem with google, and every page with 'Talk' is shown in the 'Duplicate title' s list.

Here's a patch, untested, please let me know if it works as expected :)

@cwgordon7

Thank you for the patch! will report back after runnin.

The patch changes the 'Talk' tab. The page title is still the same for the node and talk page.
Attached the image to show the difference made to the tab after the patch.

-thank you

Attached talk.module after the patch. Am new to patching. So please see if it has been applied the right way.

The proposed patch makes the tab too big; its size now depends on the title lenght, and it doesn't seem a good thing.

I then don't understand the reason to report this issue like a bug of this module, when it's a problem present in Drupal. Google Webmaster Tools described a way to resolve the problem using a meta tag. The solution at the problem of duplicate titles reported by Google should be resolved by a third-party module.

I would tend to agree that the big tab is a bad thing; the tab should remain as "Talk", probably. We can easily just change the page title using a drupal_set_title() call in the page callback.

I committed a modified version of the patch, it should be available in the development version (new release coming as soon as the heavily modified development version has been thoroughly tested).

drupal_set_title() is a way better solution.

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

Hi,

I understand why the change using drupal_set_title() was introduced. However, the tabbed interface for users is now completely broken, as the page title changes when switching between the 'view' tab the 'talk' tab; see the two attached screenshots (note I renamed 'Talk' to 'Discussion'. The theme is Nitobe, by the way).

Isn't there a way to just change the information relevant for search engines, but leave Drupal's title untouched? I really don't see a point in changing the title as seen by the user; after all, the different tab indicates that he or she is on the discussion page. For example, the title of the 'edit' page also reflects the actual node's title...

So if I understand correctly, you'd prefer for the title on the talk page to just be the title of the node? Then this gets back to the original problem. Also, I don't understand what you mean when you say "the tabbed interface for users is now completely broken." The screenshots you posted look fine.

My personal (largely uninformed) opinion is that it's better for the discussion page to have its own distinct title. The difference between a talk page and a node edit page is that the node edit page is not likely to be indexed by search engines, whereas the talk page contains content that may very well be exposed to search engines. However, as I said, my opinion is largely uninformed, so please, feel free to have a healthy debate here. :)

Hi!

My naive idea is that a user approaches a page with 'edit' and 'talk' tabs with the expectation to switch contexts using the tabs, and that the latter indicate in which context he/she is currently in. This is certainly true in Drupal when switching between viewing a node and editing. By adding a different title to the talk page, but keeping the same title for the Edit page, I personally feel that the overall tab interface becomes somewhat inconsistent - you know, it somethimes changes, and sometimes it doesn't.

On your second point - as I said, I fully understand the reason for implementing different page titles, and I do agree with you that something along that line needs to be done which isn't necessary for the Edit tab. I just wondered if there are other options that change (say) the title of the post - wouldn't it be enough for search engines to change the HTML header? But here I'm completely lost;-)

Maybe, as a compromise, it would be nice if the modified page title could be easily themed or even be configured in the administration interface. I think it's more or less hardcoded right now (apart from the name of the tab).

It seems there isn't a definitive solution; each of the suggested solutions resolve the problem, but creates a collateral effect too.

Considering that the duplicated titles are reported from a single search engine, the solution adopted should be the one reported by that search engine.
I still think that the issue is not specific to a single module/theme, and it's present also in page generated by Drupal core code; the definitive solution should be to create a module to add a custom meta tag for each Drupal pages.

I think the original problem here was fixed so we should leave this as fixed. A more sustainable long term solution is in #506658: Customizable titles everywhere using tokens or in the theme function idea in #469342: Allow each content type to have different talk tab title.

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.