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Maniphest T328209

Alternate URLs should be desktop-mobile-site-aware
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Description

Steps to replicate the issue (include links if applicable):

What happens?:

  • In the mobile site, the alternate URLs give the desktop site URLs ( https://zh.wikipedia.org ).
  • Canonical URL is a desktop URL

What should have happened instead?:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/mobile/mobile-sites-mobile-first-indexing#additional-best-practices wrote:

...

  • Check hreflang links on separate URLs.

    When you use rel=hreflang link elements for internationalization, link between mobile and desktop URLs separately. Your mobile URLs' hreflang must point to mobile URLs, and similarly desktop URL hreflang must point to desktop URLs.

...

Software version (skip for WMF-hosted wikis like Wikipedia):

  • Site: Wikipedia-zh
  • MediaWiki 1.40.0-wmf.20 ( 212529a )
  • MobileFrontend 2.4.1 ( 3fd996a )

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):

Acceptance criteria (AC):

  • Example page: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/汉语 ( shortened as /wiki/汉语 format below )
Language variant in URLActionlink rel="canonical"link rel="alternate" hreflang="zh-Hant-TW"Notes
non-specifiedview/wiki/汉语/zh-tw/汉语
zh-twview/zh-tw/汉语/zh-tw/汉语
non-specifiededit/wiki/汉语/zh-tw/汉语See T67402
zh-twedit/zh-tw/汉语/zh-tw/汉语for consistency
non-specifiedhistory/w/index.php?title=汉语&action=history(without HTML meta alternate tag)See Func's cmt.
zh-twhistory/w/index.php?title=汉语&action=history(without HTML meta alternate tag)See Func's cmt.
non-specifiedinfo/w/index.php?title=汉语&action=info(without HTML meta alternate tag)See Func's cmt.
zh-twinfo/w/index.php?title=汉语&action=info(without HTML meta alternate tag)See Func's cmt.
Func commented on https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/879583 :

I think we don't need to append the variant parameter to the history or info page,
variants only make sense when editing or viewing the page.

NOTE: Maybe we should prefer to use the BCP 47 code for language variant path?
NOTE: Maybe we would like to introduce new configuration option(s) to exclude some of the language variants?

Version: 1.23.0
Severity: normal
See Also:

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Event Timeline

Winston_Sung created this task.Jan 29 2023, 5:33 AM
Winston_Sung moved this task from Backlog to Extensions/Skins on the Chinese-Sites board.
Winston_Sung added a parent task: T307359: Mobile sites being indexed by Google.Jan 29 2023, 5:35 AM
Winston_Sung updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 29 2023, 5:41 AM
Winston_Sung added a parent task: T294716: hreflang Tags' alternate URLs are not fully-qualified.Jan 29 2023, 9:20 AM
Winston_Sung added subscribers: ovasileva, Jdforrester-WMF.Jan 30 2023, 5:08 PM
Jdlrobson updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 31 2023, 12:37 AM
Jdlrobson moved this task from Backlog to Future Unplanned on the Web-Team-Backlog-Archived (Needs Prioritization (Tech)) board.Jan 31 2023, 12:45 AM
Jdlrobson mentioned this in T294716: hreflang Tags' alternate URLs are not fully-qualified.Feb 6 2023, 10:23 PM
Jdlrobson changed the task status from Open to Stalled.Feb 22 2023, 8:01 PM
Jdlrobson subscribed.

I talked to one of Google's developers who works on the indexing engine about this today, and there is no technical reason we need to do this. I've requested they write a blog post so that I can properly source this before declining this ticket.

Winston_Sung updated the task description. (Show Details)Feb 23 2023, 1:31 AM
Winston_Sung added a comment.Feb 26 2023, 11:13 AM
In T328209#8638560, @Jdlrobson wrote:

I talked to one of Google's developers who works on the indexing engine about this today, and there is no technical reason we need to do this. I've requested they write a blog post so that I can properly source this before declining this ticket.

It would be good to ask about the thing wrote in https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/mobile/mobile-sites-mobile-first-indexing#additional-best-practices .

Winston_Sung edited parent tasks, added: T326829: [Spike] Make languages available to index crawlers in mobile version of article pages; removed: T305540: Google search traffic sending users to the wrong Chinese language versions of Wikipedia.Feb 28 2023, 7:46 AM
Winston_Sung moved this task from Extensions/Skins to Research on the Chinese-Sites board.Mar 10 2023, 8:33 AM
Jdlrobson added a comment.Mar 13 2023, 9:21 PM

I've reached out and the answer I've heard is that "The documentation predates mobile first, so these subtle topics are not covered. I am scoping what can be published fast."
I'm not sure how fast we can expect this though.

Jdlrobson closed this task as Resolved.Apr 18 2023, 4:57 PM
Jdlrobson claimed this task.

Trusting the documentation will be improved. If it doesn't please let me know and I'll reach out again to my Google contact.

Stang moved this task from Research to Closed on the Chinese-Sites board.Apr 18 2023, 5:07 PM
Stang unsubscribed.Apr 21 2023, 10:33 PM
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