Since the arrival of WordPress 2.9, the “canonical” element is automatically generated in your website’s header. While it is an excellent way to tell some search engines not to index certain pages (lets presume for a second that search engines really listen ), there some instances you my not necessarily want the “canonical” element generated on your website. Instead of helping your SEO efforts, the canonical element may actually hurt your website.

If you use Datafeedr Plugin with current (or 2.9+) version of WordPress, you might need to consider doing some tweaking to your WordPress installation. Why? Because every “product page” on your website has canonical link element in the header pointing to your “store page”. What does it mean? Well, it is like asking search engines not to index your “product pages”.

So how do you tell your WordPress not to generate canonical link element in the header?
One way you can do it is by modifying your theme’s functions.php file – this method however did not work on my WordPress 3.0 installations.

Another way you can disable canonical element is by modifying your “wp-includes/default-filters.php” file. All you need to do is to find the line 197 that says:

add_action( 'wp_head', 'rel_canonical' );

and change it to:

//add_action( 'wp_head', 'rel_canonical' );

You can delete that line entirely if you wish. But you need to do this every time you are upgrading/reinstlling your WordPress.
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Some people say that it does not matter what you choose to put between www and dot. Some insist choosing a keyword, that hopefully some how reflect your business. While others claim that it should be easy to remember.

My perspective is a combination of the first and last group of people. It really doesn’t matter what you choose for your website’s domain name as long as it easy to remember. This approach makes my life much easier, because I do not have to worry about so called keyword rich domain.

I have no intention to dwell into what extension should you get, whether or not to include hyphens in the domain or should it be 50 characters long- these arguments were discussed in great details before. Chiming into the conversation, I would like to ad my personal experience and what I have learned from it.

When I have registered my first ever domain, I thought it would be a great idea to purchase a domain which would be a combination of my first and last name. While for some people, who’s name is easy to remember this may be a good idea. Having your name for domain may prevent you from selling it for a quick profit. However if you are from eastern Europe and your combined first and last name is about 20 characters or longer, chances are you should think twice before turning it into a domain name for your website.

I think a real time example would put things in prospective. I do have a website with a domain name as a combination of my first and last name (Volodymyr Zablotskyy), even though most of my English speaking friends call me Vlad- which I should have used instead of my “official” first name. So you can imagine that as my website became more popular, I was often asked about the strange domain name. Of course I have defended that it did not matter, while deep inside I knew that was not the wisest choice I have made. To my defense it should be said that I have purchased the domain long before I new anything how the world of online marketing worked.

The worst part of having such a domain is at times when the opportunity of word of mouth marketing arises and you realize that the person you are talking to will never be able to remember your website. So what did I do. I would just say, oh my domain is difficult to remember but if you can Google me by searching for …. I of course would give a keyword for which my website ranked #1, as for example for long time I ranked #1 for “Vlad The Affiliate”. You know what was in the back of my mind on these sort of occasions? Will Google change the algorithms tomorrow and I will look like a complete idiot?

If you are about to start a blog or website and are planing to use your own name for the URL, I ask you one question. Will it be easy to remember?