SEO Update

Updated as of 8/30/2022

As part of our ongoing SEO maintenance across Hometalk Inc sites, in addition to using canonical tags on blogger posts, we are also adding a no-index tag to the majority of posts. A no-index tag tells Google not to surface that page in Google search results. This update will continue to ensure that Google prioritizes your personal blog in search results, while helping Hometalk appropriately structure and classify the content on our sites.

Hi everyone, Nicole from Hometalk here with a quick SEO update for you!

As you know, when you post on Hometalk, Foodtalk, Upstyle, or Simplify you may be duplicating your content on the internet in Google’s eyes. Duplicate content can pose an SEO problem. In the past, our SEO experts advised us to mark your content on Hometalk as “noindex”. This basically tells Google not to show your Hometalk, Foodtalk, Upstyle, or Simplify posts in Google search results. But Google doesn’t always listen to noindex, and it doesn’t explain the relationship between the original content on your blog and the copy on Hometalk, Foodtalk, Upstyle, and/or Simplify.

Our SEO experts are now advising us that placing canonical tags on your Hometalk, Foodtalk, Upstyle, and Simplify posts are a better solution for the duplicate content concern. A canonical tag acknowledges that the post on Hometalk, Foodtalk, Upstyle and/or Simplify is the duplicate version--not the original--and points Google to the original source of the post on your blog. This allows Google to prioritize the original post on your blog in search results, while avoiding any questions about content duplication. This update can also potentially give stronger SEO credibility to your site because our domain is giving credit to your site as the original source of the content through canonical tags.

We’ll be making this change in the coming weeks. No need to do anything else on your end.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out: amanda@hometalk.com.