What is it?#
Channels from any Network Site can be made available natively on other Network Sites. Any channel X syndicated from Network Site 2 to Network Site 1 will act and behave like channels that have been created on Network 1 *.
Members can post into the channel either from the owner Network (Network Site 2) or from the syndicated network (Network Site 1).
We've invented channel syndication as an easy way for a network to curate great content from across other networks and offer to its member. It ensures that there is evergreen content available to members while at the same time increasing the reach and ChannelPulse for the original channel.
Channel owners may make their channels available for free, or for a subscription fee.
This feature is in early access at the moment.
* Current limitations
- Content from a syndicated channel does not appear in the network feed or search on other Network Sites
Things to know#
- Channel ownership does not get transferred when syndicating. In the above example, Channel X continues being owned by Network 2, and is only "loaned" to Network 1.
- Channel X continues being controlled (edited, updated) from Network 2 and cannot be controlled from Network 1.
- All the rules applied to Channel X continues to apply - eg post control, moderation, etc.
- Once syndicated, Channel X in Network 1 will show all the posts that belong to that channel - whether posted from Network 2 or Network 1.
See this live#
Scheme: Channel has been syndicated from Demo2 network to Demo1 network. The channel owner is demo2.
Original channel: https://demo2.maincross.org/topics/channel-a
Syndicated channel: https://demo1.maincross.org/topics/channel-a
After syndication, a member has posted into the channel on demo 1: https://demo1.maincross.org/p/posting-into-a-syndicated-channel-mdb3it6xk3m7rip
Visual indication#
Syndicated channels show an icon at the top corner:
Hovering over the icon shows the full detail, and clicking on the icon will load the original Network Site.
Canonical content#
Content syndication leads to a standard issue of duplicate content, since posts from syndicated channels will appear at 2 different URLs. Continuing the above example, the same post is available at
- https://demo1.maincross.org/topics/935/opinion/5681/posting-into-a-syndicated-channel
- https://demo2.maincross.org/topics/935/opinion/5681/posting-into-a-syndicated-channel
This is elegantly taken care of by having meta tags correctly generated which let the world know which is the "original" URL, vs the duplicate one. This ensures that search engines give more weightage to the original URL rather than the duplicate, thus protecting the original network's SEO value.
Since the channel belongs to Demo 2, the canonical meta tag shows demo2 as the original URL:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://demo2.maincross.org/topics/935/opinion/5681/posting-into-a-syndicated-channel" data-rh="true">
