On page audit throws a rel="canonical" curve ball :-(
-
Good Morning from -3 Degrees C, still no paths gritted wetherby UK
Following an on page audit one recommendation instructs me to ad:
http://www.barrettsteel.com/" /> on the home page of barrett steel. I'm confused, i thought i only had to add this to duplications
the home page which to my knowledge dont exist.So my question is please: "Why shoul i ad this snippet of code on the home page of http://www.barrettsteel.com http://www.barrettsteel.com/" />
Any insights welcome
-
Even a capital letter means a different url
To fix the default.aspx issue
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/how-to-fix-canonical-issues-involving-the-default-page
Also make sure you dont have internal links to the default.aspx page
-
I think the idea is, that if your page gets scraped it has the canonical in it.
But you are correct that it is not the correct use, a canonical should not point to itself. Bing does not like it.
-
Ah, I'm not too sure if this was what you meant to ask in your reply to our answer - I thought you were wondering how to find out if there are any other versions of the same page within the SERPs. If that was what you meant, sorry!
I found /default.aspx by experience; I saw that your site was an ASP site which is famous for having /default.aspx as the homepage and 9/10 it won't 301 redirect back to the root.
By the way, I see that you're using a CMS called Kentico. There's a good tutorial here that explains pretty well how to add a canonical tag to all pages: http://devnet.kentico.com/Blogs/Martin-Hejtmanek/January-2010/SEO-tip--Canonical-link-elements-in-Kentico-CMS.aspx
-
Anytime, I hope I helped you come to a decision to use it.
I find the best way to check is to simply search for the content on the page with exact match quotes. I usually start with searching for the the meta title with quotes whilst using a site search, like this:
As you can see though, for this example there's quite alot of pages with the same meta title so it's then best to take a section of the homepage content and search for that, again within a site search like this:
And then lastly to confirm, search for the obvious with a site command such as :
Good luck!
-
If anyone gets the cannce, how can you detect multiple versions of a home page? I mean i had now idea http://www.barrettsteel.com/default.aspx was another version of the home page.
Come on guys tell me your secrets
-
Thanks again Vahe:-) I'm right on it
-
Hi @SEOConsult
Thank you so much vgery helpfull indeed....
regarding: "there aren't any duplicate content issues listed within SERPs currently"
Do you do this by entering the url in the search box and simply looking for duplicate content? How do you do this bit please?
Thanks and keep warm
-
Well done @SEOConsult.
-
The http://www.barrettsteel.com/" /> tag should be added on the other versions of the home page which SEO consult has mentioned.
-
Glad we're not the only ones freezing here, it's -3 here in the north west too!
I've just taken a quick look at barrettsteel.com and whilst there aren't any duplicate content issues listed within SERPs currently, there's nothing stopping canonical issues arising in the future. You can currently view the homepage via the following URL's:
http://www.barrettsteel.com/default.aspx
http://www.barrettsteel.com/Default.aspx (you can change the case for any of the letters, as-long as it says default.aspx (EG DEFAULT.aspx also works).
If someone links to /default.aspx for example, there's a chance that /default.aspx could get indexed. Therefore it's a good idea to add a canonical tag now before you do run into any issues. It doesn't take much to add it anyway, right?
I also like to implement a canonical tag so that if someone completely rips a page, the benefit will hopefully be given back to the site that the page was ripped from due to the canonical tag.
Also unrelated to your question but I found this within the SERPs: http://barrettsteel.netconstruct-preview.co.uk/ Whilst it now has no content, I'd recommend that you 301 redirect all pages from this site to the relevant page on the main site.
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
-
Canonical urls - do my web pages need them?
Hello, I'm going round in circles with this issue, so hopefully someone can help... The Moz crawl of my website lists a number of pages as "missing canonical url". The pages are all different and do not have similar content. Do I need to add a canonical url to each page? My agency quoted the following (x referencing this page: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/consolidate-duplicate-urls) list itemYou would use Canonical URLs if: list item"...you have a single page that's accessible by multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (for example, a page with both a mobile and a desktop version), Google sees these as duplicate versions of the same page." list itemThis is not the case here and so we would not propose to change anything. We could add Canonical URLs if the client feels that it is critical which occurs an additional cost. Any help / advice much appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | rj_dale0 -
Canonical Page Question
Hi, I have a question relation to Canonical pages That i need clearing up. I am not sure that my bigcommere website is correctly configured and just wanted clarification from someone in the know. Take this page for example https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/ Canonical link is https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/ The Rel="next" link is https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/?sort=bestselling&page=2 and this page has a canonical tag as rel='canonical' href='https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/?page=2' /> Is this correct as above and working as it should or should the canonical tag for the second (pagination page) https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/?page=2 in our source code be saying rel='canonical' href='https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/barra-lures/' />
Technical SEO | | oceanstorm0 -
Removing a canonical tag from Pagination pages
Hello, Currently on our site we have the rel=prev/next markup for pagination along with a self pointing canonical via the Yoast Plugin. However, on page 2 of our paginated series, (there's only 2 pages currently), the canonical points to page one, rather than page 2. My understanding is that if you use a canonical on paginated pages it should point to a viewall page as opposed to page one. I also believe that you don't need to use both a canonical and the rel=prev/next markup, one or the other will do. As we use the markup I wanted to get rid of the canonical, would this be correct? For those who use the Yoast Plugin have you managed to get that to work? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jessicarcf0 -
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 -
Forum website rel="nofollow" is this Good?
Hi, Forum website rel="nofollow" is this Good? We have a Q & A site and have all links as Nofollow. Would this be a good way? Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Rel="next"
Hi I was just wondering if there is any difference in using rel='next' rather than rel="next". Would it still work the same way? I mean using the apostrophes differently, would it matter? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | pikka0 -
Duplicate Page Content / Rel Canonical
Hi, The diagnostics shows me that I have 590 Duplicate Page Content , but when it shows the Rel Canonical I have over 1000, so dose that mean I have no Duplicate Page Content problem? Please help.
Technical SEO | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
Syndication: Link back vs. Rel Canonical
For content syndication, let's say I have the choice of (1) a link back or (2) a cross domain rel canonical to the original page, which one would you choose and why? (I'm trying to pick the best option to save dev time!) I'm also curious to know what would be the difference in SERPs between the link back & the canonical solution for the original publisher and for sydication partners? (I would prefer not having the syndication partners disappeared entirely from SERPs, I just want to make sure I'm first!) A side question: What's the difference in real life between the Google source attribution tag & the cross domain rel canonical tag? Thanks! PS: Don't know if it helps but note that we can syndicate 1 article to multiple syndication partners (It would't be impossible to see 1 article syndicated to 50 partners)
Technical SEO | | raywatson0