From 585a9503ab21477aa4cb74f660468bd58efd19b9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Ryan Salazar <ryaninwilton@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2026 17:37:45 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?homepage:=20make=20'/'=20the=20canonical=20rout?=
 =?UTF-8?q?e,=20301=20/home-page=20=E2=86=92=20/?=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Previous state: '/' was 307-redirected to '/home-page', and the
home-page route declared canonical='/home-page'. Net effect on
SEO: Google indexed '/home-page' as the canonical homepage and
treated '/' as a transient redirect (no link equity passed).

Changes:
- next.config.mjs: replace the source:'/' destination:'/home-page'
  temporary redirect with source:'/home-page' destination:'/'
  permanent (301). Any existing crawler entry for /home-page now
  consolidates onto '/'.
- src/app/page.tsx (new): re-exports default + metadata from
  ./home-page/page so '/' serves the homepage directly. No file
  moves required, no relative-import breakage in the home-page
  component subtree.
- src/app/home-page/page.tsx: canonical and openGraph.url
  '/home-page' → '/'. The page still builds at /home-page but
  the 301 above will redirect any hit before render.
- src/app/sitemap.ts: drop the duplicate /home-page entry — Google
  shouldn't be told about a URL that just redirects.
---
 next.config.mjs            | 12 ++++++++----
 src/app/home-page/page.tsx |  4 ++--
 src/app/page.tsx           |  7 +++++++
 src/app/sitemap.ts         |  1 -
 4 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 src/app/page.tsx

diff --git a/next.config.mjs b/next.config.mjs
index 239bc71..3042b64 100644
--- a/next.config.mjs
+++ b/next.config.mjs
@@ -50,11 +50,15 @@ const nextConfig = {
 
   async redirects() {
     return [
-      // Root redirect
+      // Homepage canonical: '/' is the real route now (src/app/page.tsx
+      // re-exports from src/app/home-page/page.tsx). The legacy
+      // /home-page URL gets a 301 permanent redirect to '/' so any
+      // crawler entry for /home-page consolidates link equity onto
+      // the canonical root.
       {
-        source: '/',
-        destination: '/home-page',
-        permanent: false,
+        source: '/home-page',
+        destination: '/',
+        permanent: true,
       },
       // WordPress admin redirects for broadcastbeat.com (301 permanent)
       {
diff --git a/src/app/home-page/page.tsx b/src/app/home-page/page.tsx
index 2a8d21b..90c5403 100644
--- a/src/app/home-page/page.tsx
+++ b/src/app/home-page/page.tsx
@@ -16,12 +16,12 @@ export const metadata: Metadata = {
   title: 'Broadcast Beat — Broadcast Engineering News & Insights',
   description: 'The digital platform for broadcast engineering professionals. Breaking news, deep-dive features, and industry spotlights from NAB to IBC and beyond.',
   alternates: {
-    canonical: '/home-page',
+    canonical: '/',
   },
   openGraph: {
     title: 'Broadcast Beat — Broadcast News',
     description: 'Breaking news and insights for broadcast engineering professionals.',
-    url: '/home-page',
+    url: '/',
     type: 'website',
     images: [
       {
diff --git a/src/app/page.tsx b/src/app/page.tsx
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b546f23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/app/page.tsx
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+// Canonical homepage at '/'.
+// Content is defined in ./home-page/page.tsx (kept there to avoid
+// breaking the relative imports its components depend on). The legacy
+// /home-page URL still resolves but 301-redirects here via the
+// next.config.mjs redirects() block.
+export { default } from "./home-page/page";
+export { metadata } from "./home-page/page";
diff --git a/src/app/sitemap.ts b/src/app/sitemap.ts
index dc6c944..8939bc0 100644
--- a/src/app/sitemap.ts
+++ b/src/app/sitemap.ts
@@ -47,7 +47,6 @@ async function listEventSlugs(): Promise<{ slug: string; updated_at: string }[]>
 export default async function sitemap(): Promise<MetadataRoute.Sitemap> {
   const staticPages: MetadataRoute.Sitemap = [
     { url: `${BASE_URL}/`, lastModified: new Date(), changeFrequency: 'daily', priority: 1.0 },
-    { url: `${BASE_URL}/home-page`, lastModified: new Date(), changeFrequency: 'daily', priority: 1.0 },
     { url: `${BASE_URL}/news`, lastModified: new Date(), changeFrequency: 'hourly', priority: 0.9 },
     { url: `${BASE_URL}/gear`, lastModified: new Date(), changeFrequency: 'daily', priority: 0.8 },
     { url: `${BASE_URL}/technology`, lastModified: new Date(), changeFrequency: 'daily', priority: 0.8 },