Problem of printer friendly version.

[seoug_2005]

For one of our client's side,  most of the backlinks are going to printer friendly version page. I recommeded to him to use the canonical tag on printer friendly version pointing to other page.

Luckily, while searching i came across this posts at - http://www.seomoz.org/q/solving-printer-friendly-version

The solution recommended was this -

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" href="our-print-version.css"> 

My questions are -

1. what should i write in place of  our-print-version.css

Should it be print.css ?

2. Where do i place this code ? in which file ?

[RyanKent]

Hi Atul.

I looked at the Q&A response link you offered. I will try to offer some clarifications:

Where do i place this code ? in which file ?

CSS declarations are made in the of your HTML document

what should i write in place of  our-print-version.css

The name of the file which contains the css code for your print format pages

For one of our client's side,  most of the backlinks are going to printer friendly version page. I recommended to him to use the canonical tag on printer friendly version pointing to other page.

Your recommendation is sound, and I agree with it.

[seoug_2005]

Thanks a lot Ryan.

CSS declarations are made in the of your HTML document

i was not sure, that's why i asked this. Should this declaration be made in printer friendly version page ?

[RyanKent]

How the CSS is presented is up to your web designer. It could be a part of the site's main css, or in a separate file. It would need to be accessible and declared on the printer friendly version page.

As part of speed optimizations, all CSS files may be condensed into a single file.

[seoug_2005]

"It would need to be accessible and declared on the printer friendly version page"

That' what i was looking for. I will ask designer to declare this file in printer friendly version page. So, the solutution will be -

We place this code in printer friendly version page -

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" href="print.css">

print.css will have the css code for  print format pages. and print.css will be a separate file

Do i need to 301 printer friendly page ?

[RyanKent]

Do i need to 301 printer friendly page ?

No. Your site's visitors need to access the printer friendly page. If you add a 301, then no one will be able to view the print friendly page.

I should also clarify, if your site currently offers a print friendly page and it works, then your programmer has already taken care of the issue from a website functionality perspective. The only question is whether changes need to be made to optimize the code from a SEO or Page Speed perspective.

[seoug_2005]

Thanks once again for clarification.

The only question is whether changes need to be made to optimize the code from a SEO or Page Speed perspective.

You mean to say, css code must reside in an external file and linked from page to minimise code.

[RyanKent]

Correct.

Often a site will refer to numerous CSS files. There are tools which will combine multiple CSS files into a single file and properly compress the files to optimize them for page speed.