Workaround for WordPress Duplicate Content Bug

Hi folks,

So far, all my attempts to post about a duplicate content vulnerability associated with WordPress bug number 3039 have been trapped in moderation, never to be seen. (No such problems over at the WordPress MU forum, where this http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=5811 thread appeared just fine.) Thus the ‘temp’ registration in an attempt to get the post to work this time.

You may be aware that WordPress and WordPress MU suffer from a bug first reported in August 2006 that results in potentially infinitely many pages of duplicated content in response to queries that include post page numbers. Recently, I wrote a long couple of posts explaining the bug in some detail and offering a workaround via htaccess rules and 301 redirects. (I’m not going to post the link directly here, because it will just be another excuse for this post to be consigned to moderation purgatory; if you’d like the fix, please check the URL available in the WPMU thread.)

The problem, however, is that the fix can only be used in its present form on blogs which do not make use of post pagination (e.g., via ‘nextpage’ or plugins). I’m wondering is there some way around this limitation which someone else could suggest, ’cause I’m stumped?

Naturally, the best possible response would be a fix in the WP core, but since that was flagged up as being too difficult at the time the bug was first reported, I’m guessing it’s not high on the list of priorities for pending fixes — even though it afflicts 50 million pages of content at WordPress.com alone. So unless or until some clever person creates a ‘real’ fix, it looks like we’re stuck with workarounds, and I’d sure be glad to have a more complete workaround than I’ve already published! As it stands now, you can have pagination support only at the cost of a massive duplicate content problem — or you can fix the duplicate content problem, but then you lose pagination support.

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts,
Greg