Google is reporting that my site's K2 is creating duplicate title tags and duplicate meta tags,

Here is an example -
bearing.us.com/products/item/19-cylindrical-roller-bearings.html
bearing.us.com/products/item/19-cylindrical-roller-bearings.html?tmpl=component&print=1

I'm not 100% sure this is a bug but if there is a way to fix this, please let me know!

Thanks!

Google says that there might be dupilcate links in cms sites for print pages,etc.and its ok.if u dont want it,so the devs of k2 should add nofollow link to buttons.
Regards

Actually it's NOT ok - Google is not displaying my website because of the duplicate content created by this:

?tmpl=component&print=1

Is this part of Joomla or is it coming from K2??

mehdi f said:Google says that there might be dupilcate links in cms sites for print pages,etc.and its ok.if u dont want it,so the devs of k2 should add nofollow link to buttons. Regards

Can anyone help me or guide me as to how I can keep these links from being indexed:

?tmpl=component&print=1

Google is not giving my page results because it's claiming duplicate title entries.

Hello Darren!

Maybe I can still help you. I had the same problem today and found a solution. Please go to the line 114 in <joomlaroot>/components/com_k2/templates/default/item.php and change it to:

<a class="modal itemPrintLink" href="<?php echo $this->item->printLink; ?>" onclick="window.open(this.href,'win2','status=no,toolbar=no,scrollbars=yes,titlebar=no,menubar=no,resizable=yes,width=900,height=500,directories=no,location=no'); return false;" rel="nofollow">

Before this change the attribute rel was reserved with a handler which opens an iframe. But you need the attribute rel reserved with nofollow to let Google and other search bots know not to follow this link (like mehdi mentioned). What I did with the additional attribute onclick is to copy the behaviour of the normal Joomla! print button. A new window will be opened. Just try it out.

That's a great solution Davide.

I noticed something else that's a bit weird. I'm seeing a duplicate title on Google Web Master.

Displaying items by tag: design| WebSite Name
/component/k2/itemlist/tag/design
/green-community-blog/itemlist/tag/design

Strange, no?

Yet, when I do a link: search for the offending /component link on Yahoo, nothing shows. I'm going to watch this a bit and see what developers.

At the moment, I'm pretty close to just adding rel nofollow to the item.php area for tag links, so I don't have to worry about it.

Best,
HC

Not as strange as it seems to be. I have two possible answers:

1) I used K2 v2.2 without a SEF component at the beginning. I used the same tags for articles in different categories. Unfortunately the SEF handling of K2 v2.2 was really not the best. I had 7 categories and 7 different URLs (beginning with each category) for each tag. Try to use a SEF component. So you can get rid of this itemlist too.
After trying ARTIO JoomSEF and sh404sef I can only recommend AceSEF with the additional K2 extension. It has a better performance and it's easier to use than sh404sef and has a better K2 extension than JoomSEF. AceSEF is only lacking in the handling of unknown/not generated URLs. It doesn't always give a 404 Not Found back.
2) I had also URLs containing component in the index of search engines. I don't know why and when Joomla is answering with these generated URLs. One solution is to create a redirection (HTTP status 301 Moved permanently) with a SEF component. The other solution is to add Disallow: /component/ to your robots.txt for all user agents.

I hope I could help you further.

Best regards

Davide

Yes. I agree. This is the case with Joomla as well as K2. Both by default handle linked PDF and print pages this way, leading to duplicate entries in the search engines. Moreover, these linked pages frequently rank higher than the article content page.

Either no follow or simply remove them in place of a widget such as AddThis.

Davide, Thanks so much.

2) I had also URLs containing component in the index of search engines. I don't know why and when Joomla is answering with these generated URLs. One solution is to create a redirection (HTTP status 301 Moved permanently) with a SEF component. The other solution is to add Disallow: /component/ to your robots.txt for all user agents.

I had considered the same thing - using robots.txt with a wildcard - but I was concerned that I'd still be passing page rank on to the generated and indexed pages. Do you think this is a valid concern?

Regarding the SEF thing - As a longtime Mambo --> Joomla! user, I hate going 'off core'. So for SEF I've traditionally used the JoomlaAtWork Patch or just SEF mode with some adjustments.

Ultimately, my page title and article titles being the same isn't a concern - so what I've done is to use the simple 'web site name' plugin to append the site name to the page title. Works fine, and I'm seeing good indexing results from Google as I'm focusing more on unique content and trusted sources, anyway.

As far as I know I've always been online in SEF mode, so the components/k2 thing really bothers me. I may go ahead and try the robots, but I'm a bit concerned about messing up whatever generated page Google is reading (but I can't find.).

More immediately, I did setup the XMAP component on the site with the K2 plugin. Although this isn't canonical URLs yet, it does bring the site a step closer to validity in the sense of Google webmaster tools, etc.

Best,
HC

Okay, I have an update.

re: Duplicate Page Titles (component/k2 & normal URL)

After submitting a site map (XMAP & K2 Plugin) to Google Web Master tools, and giving the issue some time, the 'component/k2' URL's were no longer being indexed as duplicate URL's and Page Titles by Google.

re: Duplicate Meta Descriptions (from tag links)

Still a problem. The tag-browse pages are indexed by Google, and have a good SEO value, but they (of course) use the web site's global meta description. Google considers then, the tag-browse pages to have a duplicate meta desciption.

Not sure how to address this..it's not like we want to write out meta descriptions for every tag in K2, and SEO value of the tags is actually pretty good. Anyone have any ideas?