Blog Sections Open
Avoiding Duplicate Product URLs Across Multiple Categories
A catalog architecture note on handling products that appear in several categories without creating unnecessary duplicate URLs.
Catalog projects often want one product to appear in several categories, but search engines do not like multiple URLs serving the same content. the discussion captured that tension clearly.
The clean principle
Every product should have one canonical public URL, even if it is discoverable from several navigation paths.
Why this is important
- duplicate URLs split ranking signals
- analytics and internal linking become harder to interpret
- catalog logic gets more fragile when one product has many public identities
If the product data lives outside the main document tree, the rule still holds: choose one canonical route and treat all category-specific paths as navigational helpers rather than separate public documents.
truncate Revisited: Cleaner Summaries for HTML Content
An extras-style note about a stronger truncate helper derived from the DocLister summary logic, with better handling of HTML content and parser-like text.
Why Strict URLs Can Break POST-Based Forms
A form-handling warning for legacy projects where URL normalization redirects interfere with POST data and silently break form processing.