Is having "rel=canonical" on the same page it is pointing to going to hurt search?
-
i like the rel=canonical tag and i've seen matt cutts posts on google about this tag. for the site i'm working on, it's a great workaround because we often have two identical or nearly identical versions of pages: 1 for patients, 1 for doctors.
the problem is this: the way our content management system is set up, certain pages are linked up in a number of places and when we publish, two different versions of the page are created, but same content. because they are both being made from the same content templates, if i put in the rel=canonical tag, both pages get it. so, if i have:
http://www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp and http://www.myhospital.com/professional-condition.asp and they are both produced from the same template, and have the same content, and i'm trying to point search at http://www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp, but that tag appears on both pages
similarly, we have various forms and we like to know where people are coming from on the site to use those forms. to the bots, it looks like there's 600 versions of particular pages, so again, rel=canonical is great. however, because it's actually all the same page, just a link with a variable tacked on (http://www.myhospital.com/makeanappointment.asp?id=211) the rel=canonical tag will appear on "all" of them.
any insight is most appreciated!
thanks! brett
-
Yes
-
Got it. Dr.Pete have done excellent work on similar blog post. Right?
-
So, Does it really matter to add rel=canonical tag in each pages? Can I remove from web page?
It does matter, and you should not remove the canonical tag.
One example on the page you referenced is the following URL: http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/umbrella-stands?dir=asc&order=name
On the page you referenced visitors can change the default ORDER BY Position to ORDER BY Name (as an example) which changes the URL. Both pages are the same content but displayed different, which is exactly the type of issue canonicalization is designed to correct.
-
I am not getting clear idea by this answer. I am searching solution which may help me to solve same question.
I would like to share my URL.
http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/umbrella-stands
This page have rel=canonical tag for same page as follow.
<link rel="canonical" href="[http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/umbrella-stands](view-source:http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/umbrella-stands)" />
Website does not contain any duplicate page which is associated to this page. So, Does it really matter to add rel=canonical tag in each pages? Can I remove from web page?
-
Hi Brett.
Steven is correct. I think it will be helpful if I offer a bit more clarification.
www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp
www.myhopsital.com/professional-condition.asp
www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp?id=1
Those three URLs may point to the exact same page or very similar pages. Google simply wont index all 3 pages as it does not offer any user benefit. The best thing to do is tell Google which of these 3 pages is the primary page you wish listed. By placing the same canonical tag on all 3 pages, you are indicating to Google which page you wish listed.
With the above tag placed in all 3 pages, then Google knows in the first URL example they are dealing with the original page, and in the next 2 examples they are dealing with a copy.
NOTE: I am unsure why two users disliked this reply. It is correct. If I were to stretch, I can add that Bing stated their preference the canonical tag not used on a page who's URL matches the canonical, but they seem to handle it well with no issues.
-
With rel='canonical' you want to point all existing pages that have the same content to 1 page. Having a rel='canonical' on the page with itself as the href will not hurt, can only help verify that it is the preferred page.
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
-
Using http: shorthand inside canonical tag ("//" instead of "http:") can cause harm?
HI, I am planning to launch a new site, and shortly after to move to HTTPS. to save the need to change over 5,000 canonical tags in pages the webmaster suggested we implement inside the rel canonical "//" instead of the absolute path, would that do any damage or be a problem? oranges-south-dakota" />
Technical SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Redundant categorization - "boys" and "girls" category. Any other suggestions than implementing filtering?
One of our clients (a children's clothing company) has split their categories (outwear, tops, shoes) between boys and girls - There's one category page for girls outwear, and one category for boys outwear. I am suspecting that this redundant categorisation is diluting link juice and rankings for the related search queries. Important points: The clothes themselves are rather gender-neutral, girl's sweaters don't differ that much from the boy's sweaters. Our keyword research indicates that norwegians' search queries are also pretty gender neutral - people are generally searching after "children's dresses", "shoes for kids", "snowsuits", etc. So these gender specific categories are not really reflective of people's search behavior. I acknowledge that implementing a filter for "boys" and "girls" would be the best way to solve this redundant categorization, but that would simply be to expensive for our client. I'm thinking that some sort of canonicalisation would be the best approach to solve this issue. Are there any other suggestions or comments to this?
Technical SEO | | Inevo0 -
Will using tabs on my page for navigation hurt SEO
Currently we have tabs on some pages that are set so that the page shows all the content for search engines on one page, but the user sees only part of the content until they click a tab. We are unable to use title tags for the tabbed areas. We think this hurts us from an SEO standpoint. We are getting only 3 keyword where we could have 12 if they were individual pages. What is the thought on using tabs and is it okay? Has there been any case studies on this?
Technical SEO | | cayseo0 -
Are you allowed to point different urls to same page
hi, i have some urls that i am either going to put on hold or thinking about pointing to one of my sites. what it is, i am looking at re-designing the pages but not until next year, so i thought i would point some of the urls to a site that i am happy with to different pages, but not sure if i am allowed this or not so for example, if i have a site on cars, and one of the url is www.rovercars.co.uk i was thinking about pointing it to the page that is about rover cars. can anyone let me know if this is allowed or not please
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How can the search engines can crawl my java script generated web pages
For example when I click in a link of this movie from the home page, the link send me to this page http://www.vudu.mx/movies/#!content/293191/Madagascar-3-Los-Fugitivos-Madagascar-3-Europes-Most-Wanted-Doblada but in the source code I can't see the meta tittle and description and I think the search engines wont see that too, am I right? I guess that only appears the source code of that "master template" and that it is not usefull for me. So, my question is, how can I add dynamically this data to every page of each movie to allow crawl all the pages to the search engines? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | mobile3600 -
Lots of Domains Going Nowhere - Point to a Real Domain?
I have hundreds of domains that I have purchased over the years that arent going anywhere except GoDaddy's Cash Parking system, which returns very little revenue, if at all. I wonder if it would make more sense to just point these domains to actually e-commerce sites that I own. If so, how best to take these domains and point them so that SEO credit is given properly. Most of these available domains dont have anything to do with the e-commerce stores. So not sure it would help. Furthermore, if I were to purchase new domains that were more relevant to the keywords to our e-commerce sites, how best to set them up so we can generate traffic on them and point them over to the actual domains? Many thanks.
Technical SEO | | findachristianjob0 -
What should i do with the links for "Login", "Register", "My Trolley" links on every page.
My website ommrudraksha has 3 links on every page. 1. Login 2. Register 3. My trolley My doubt is i do not want to give any weightage to these links. does these links will be calculated when page links are calculated ? Should i remove these as links and place these as buttons ? ( with look a like of link visually ? )
Technical SEO | | Ommrudraksha0 -
On Page 301 redirect for html pages
For php pages youve got Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Technical SEO | | shupester
Header( "Location: http://www.example.com" );
?> Is there anything for html pages? Other then Or is placing this code redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.php in the .htaccess the only way to properly 301 redirect html pages? Thanks!0