Canonical tag for similar page with different theme.
-
Our commerce system allows products to be shared across multiple categories/sections of our site. E.G.
/boxes/blue-box.html
/circles/blue-box.html
This enables the product to show up in different areas of the site, but does not link to an evergreen URL. We are considering using the canonical tag to resolve this issue, but our question relates to the similarity of the pages.
Each section folder (e.g. /boxes/ and /circles/) has a different header, left navigation and footer. They are similar in layout and some content is the same, but a good portion is different in the header and nav. Each category nav basically deals with deeper links in it's own category.
The product title, image, description, etc. is all the same and makes up the bulk of the page. Is this a good candidate for the canonical tag or should we attempt to accommodate an evergreen URL?
-
One static URL that can be found by your users from within any of the categories that the product is in would probably be best. That way there is no chance of duplicate content issues if the search engines were to find both and not resolve the canonical tag.
Really, I think it could go either way. Whichever one is easiest to implement in your particular situation, unless there are a lot of inbound links to your products. If that is the case, changing the URLs would require 301 redirects from the old URLs.
-
The canonical would be the quickest to implement for us, but the evergreen URL wouldn't be a huge deal to implement either after we took a look at it. Is there an advantage to one versus the other?
-
SE's can tell(for the most part) what is your content what is your header and what is your nav and footer, when looking for duplicate content, tehy are not concerned about the nav footer and header, they are concerned with your content.
-
I would use canonical in this situation. That way you won't have to rework all your navigation to have a single url for each product and can keep your category structures intact.
This is a situation that many eCommerce platforms really don't handle well. For example, I know of one that claims to offer canonical for product pages, but it gives each version (boxes/product.html and circles/product.html) its own unique canonical tag rather than both referring to the same product.html page. Kind of misses the point.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best Practices for Title Tags for Product Listing Page
My industry is commercial real estate in New York City. Our site has 300 real estate listings. The format we have been using for Title Tags are below. This probably disastrous from an SEO perspective. Using number is a total waste space. A few questions:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?
-If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?
-Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?
-I have red that titles should contain some form of branding. But our company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space. That would take up way too much space. Even "Metro Manhattan" is long. DO we need to use the title tag for branding or can we just focus on a brief description of page content incorporating one important phrase? Our site is: w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . c o m <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Turnkey Flatiron Tech Space | 2,850 SF $10,687/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Gallery, Office Rental | Midtown, W. 57 St | 4441SF $24055/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Open Plan Loft |Flatiron, Chelsea | 2414SF $12,874/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Tribeca Corner Loft | Varick Street | 2267SF $11,712/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| 275 Madison, LAW, P7, 3,252SF, $65 - Manhattan, New York |0 -
Why our page not ranking even searching for exact h1 tag?
Even I search for exact h1 tag heading from our homepage, it's (homepage) not been showing up on TOP of the results. Other websites with partial match of search query are ranking above us; why this is happening? And other website with same text as normal paragraph is ranking on top. But not out h1 tag from homepage? How come normal text of unrelated website is ranking above h1 heading from homepage of own website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Prioritise a page in Google/why is a well-optimised page not ranking
Hello I'm new to Moz Forums and was wondering if anyone out there could help with a query. My client has an ecommerce site selling a range of pet products, most of which have multiple items in the range for difference size animals i.e. [Product name] for small dog
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LauraSorrelle
[Product name] for medium dog
[Product name] for large dog
[Product name] for extra large dog I've got some really great rankings (top 3) for many keyword searches such as
'[product name] for dogs'
'[product name]' But these rankings are for individual product pages, meaning the user is taken to a small dog product page when they might have a large dog or visa versa. I felt it would be better for the users (and for conversions and bounce rates), if there was a group page which showed all products in the range which I could target keywords '[product name]', '[product name] for dogs'. The page would link through the the individual product pages. I created some group pages in autumn last year to trial this and, although they are well-optimised (score of 98 on Moz's optimisation tool), they are not ranking well. They are indexed, but way down the SERPs. The same group page format has been used for the PPC campaign and the difference to the retention/conversion of visitors is significant. Why are my group pages not ranking? Is it because my client's site already has good rankings for the target term and Google does not want to show another page of the site and muddy results?
Is there a way to prioritise the group page in Google's eyes? Or bring it to Google's attention? Any suggestions/advice welcome. Thanks in advance Laura0 -
What is the impact of an off-topic page to other pages on the site?
We are working with a client who has one irrelevant, off-topic post ranking incredibly well and driving a lot of traffic. However, none of the other pages on the site, that are relevant to this client's business, are ranking. Links are good and in-line with competitors for the various terms. Oddly, very few external links reference this off-topic post, most are to the home page. Local profile is also in-line with competitors, including reviews, categorization, geo-targeting, pictures, etc. No spam issues exist and no warnings in Google Search Console. The only thing that seems weird is this off-topic post but that could affect rankings on other pages of the site? Would removing that off-topic post potentially help increase traffic and rankings for the other more relevant pages of the site? Appreciate any and all help or ideas of where to go from here. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Matthew_Edgar0 -
SEO mobile app optimization: multi tag link alternate media per every devices is acceptable in the desktop page?
Hi All, Hi hope someone could answer to this question because on internet I haven't found a clear solution so far: I have: 1 desktop website (let's make www.example.com) and different mobile websites for each main device (let's make iphone.example.mobi; android.example.mobi; winphone.example.mobi) In order to optimize my mobile websites, According to the Google guideline of the above separate urls configuration , I should add a tag link alternate media in the desktop page and a canonical tag in the corresponding mobile page in order to create a connection between them. But, I need to keep a 1-to-1 connection between desktop page and mobile page (Google recommends to have 1 desktop page linked to 1 mobile page and viceversa and discourages the 1-to-multi connections). What I would like: In my case, I have to add the a single desktop page of desktop site (example www.example.com/category1/), 3 links alternate media tag,( one for iphone.example.mobi, one for android.example.mobi and one for winphone.example.mobi). Furthemore, I have to add a canonical tag in every corresponding mobile page of the 3 mobile site version, a canonical tag pointing to my sektop page www.example.com/category1/. Now my worries are: having a single desktop page with 3 different link alternate tags pointing to 3 different mobile websites (one each), is something or not aligned to the google seo mobile guideline? If not, How should I configure my desktop website and my 3 mobile web applications(iphone, android, winphone) in order to follow the Google requirements for Separate urls apllication? Thanks, Massimliano
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdiRste0 -
What to do about similar product pages on major retail site
Hi all, I have a dilemma and I'm hoping the community can guide me in the right direction. We're working with a major retailer on launching a local deals section of their website (what I'll call the "local site"). The company has 55 million products for one brand, and 37 million for another. The main site (I'll call it the ".com version") is fairly well SEO'd with flat architecture, clean URLs, microdata, canonical tag, good product descriptions, etc. If you were looking for a refrigerator, you would use the faceted navigation and go from department > category > sub-category > product detail page. The local site's purpose is to "localize" all of the store inventory and have weekly offers and pricing specials. We will use a similar architecture as .com, except it will be under a /local/city-state/... sub-folder. Ideally, if you're looking for a refrigerator in San Antonio, Texas, then the local page should prove to be more relevant than the .com generic refrigerator pages. (the local pages have the addresses of all local stores in the footer and use the location microdata as well - the difference will be the prices.) MY QUESTION IS THIS: If we pull the exact same product pages/descriptions from the .com database for use in the local site, are we creating a duplicate content problem that will hurt the rest of the site? I don't think I can canonicalize to the .com generic product page - I actually want those local pages to show up at the top. Obviously, we don't want to copy product descriptions across root domains, but how is it handled across the SAME root domain? Ideally, it would be great if we had a listing from both the .com and the /local pages in the SERPs. What do you all think? Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKelly0 -
Should We Add the W3.org Language Tag To Every Page Or Just The Home Page?
Greetings, We have five international sites around the world, two of which are in difference languages. Currently we have the following line of html code on the home page of each of the sites: Clearly, we need to change the "en" portion for the sites that aren't in English, but, should we include that meta tag in each of the site's pages, or will the home page suffice. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CSawatzky0