discourse seo

discourse seo is a custom tool for custom SEO-focused modifications over Discourse.

This plugin currently adds an X-Robots-Tag: noindex response header to topic pages when a topic belongs to selected categories, helping you control what search engines can index.

Installation

Add discourse seo to your Discourse container's app.yml:

hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/gorfist/discourse-seo.git

Rebuild Discourse:

cd /var/discourse
./launcher rebuild app

Configuration

In Discourse admin settings:

1. Enable discourse category topic noindex enabled.
2. Select categories in category topic noindex categories.
3. Choose canonical behavior in canonical topic post urls:
   • self (default): /t/topic/16654/6 keeps canonical /t/topic/16654/6
   • topic_root: /t/topic/16654/6 uses canonical /t/topic/16654

Every topic in a selected category will return:

X-Robots-Tag: noindex

The tool also honors the legacy topic custom field noindex, so topics previously marked by discourse-topic-noindex continue to receive the header.

Canonical URL Override

discourse seo can override canonical tags for topic post URLs without redirecting or changing route structure.

• canonical_topic_post_urls = self: each post URL remains self-canonical.
• canonical_topic_post_urls = topic_root: post URLs canonicalize to the topic root URL.

Locales

Included locales:

• English: config/locales/server.en.yml
• Persian: config/locales/server.fa_IR.yml