Canonical to the page itself?
-
Hello,
I'd like to know what happens when you use canonical to the same page itself, like:
Page "example.com"
rel canonical="example.com"
Does that impact in something? Bad or good?
See ya!
-
We're re-evaluating the canonical notice, as it's confusing to a lot of people. Our intent wasn't necessarily to say that the tag is wrong, but more of a "heads up" (in case there are potential problems). Unfortunately, there's no good way to automatically detect what page a canonical should point to, so we tend to have to use general warnings.
-
According to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8eQgx-njk4 Matt says there is no penalization of any kind with a canonical tag referencing to the page itself.
However, I have noticed that SEOMoz doesn't like it. It keeps reporting thousands of canonicals in the "Notices" report as if there was something I should do about it.
-
Keep in mind that a lot of my organic SEO client work is helping people deal with massive-scale duplicate content problems (including Panda issues), so I'm probably a bit more hyper-sensitive than your average person
-
For some people, a "landing page" could have URL variants, like tracking parameters for affiliates. So, it's hard to talk about them in a vacuum. If you're talking about a regular main-nav page like "About Us", you'd almost never need a canonical tag.
-
For e-commerce I think is very important, even more for the big ones, that have a lot of filters of princing or color that are in fact other URLs. There we need to input a canonical.
But for landing pages, N1 deep, that seems like a hotsite, when the company just sells one online service, I can't imagine what kind of benefits using "self canonical" in a page like this.
Sorry for making this longer, I should've chosen Discussion up there!
Answer when you can! =] -
I'd say it's a matter of risk. If you're on an e-commerce site, for sample, where the risk of a page having URL-based duplicates is high, a pre-emptive canonical can make sense. In a perfect world, I agree with Alan - it's better not to need them. I've just rarely seen that perfect world on large sites.
"Landing pages" is a loaded term, though, because landing pages can often have tracking parameters (such as affiliate IDs) and other URL modifications. Some landing pages are a perfect storm of dupe content. So, it's really situational.
-
Thanks for the attention Peter.
I understand your point about the Homepage.
But what about other pages? Landing pages with canonical to it self?
It seems to me meaningless, or worse, lowering trust, like Bing seems to do, in the link Alan wrote above.
-
I think it's good for some pages, especially the home-page, because you can naturally have so many variants ("www" vs. non-www, for example). It's a lot easier to pre-emptively canonicalize them than 301-redirect every URL variant that might pop up over time.
While Alan's concerns are technically correct, I've never seen evidence that either Google or Bing actually devalue a page for a self-referencing canonical. For Google, the risks of duplicates are much worse than the risk of an unnecessary canonical tag, IMO. For Bing, I don't really have good data either way. More and more people use canonical proactively, so I suspect Bing doesn't take action.
I don't generally use it site-wide, unless needed, but I almost always recommend a canonical on the home-page, at least for now. Technical SEO is always changing.
-
yes you are correct,
The only good thing about doing it is stopping scrapers, if they dont take them out, but i dont think this is much of a advanatge as I believ if you do get scraped it is likely that they will remove you canonical, if they dont, I believe that SE's will see that they have a site full of duplicate content and give the credit to you anyhow. I think that SE's get this correct most of the time.
And if you are using canonicals for a valid reason, you dont want Bing to ingnore them because you have misused them elsewhere. Even for 2%
-
Thanks Alan,
So, what seems is that "self page canonical" has no clear or even any good points for taking the risk of doing it?
I'm more concerned about Google, once I'm from Brazil, and Google rules 98% of searches...
-
When some one scrapes your site they take the canonical with them, pointing back to the original, so you still get credit. that is if they dont take it out.
But this is a miss use of a canonical, a canonical should not point back to the same page.
Bing for one has said that they will lose trust in your site if you do this, they will start to not trust all your canonicals, those that are there for a good reason.
http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2011/10/06/managing-redirects-301s-302s-and-canonicals.aspxGoogle have said that they can handle it.
But a canonical does not pass all the link juice, so a canonical to itself, does it leak link juice? google says that can handle it, but that does not mean there is not a leak in link juice.
I for one dont do it, bing has made it clear they dont like, and even though google have said they can handle it, it does not mean there is no down side.
-
Thanks Stephen!
Can your talk more about the scrape? It was not too clear for me.
Sorry =]
-
Nothing bad and turns good when people scrape your content (it gets scraped with the canonical to your page) or you make a mistake with your information architecture (as things tend to point to the correct place)
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
-
Should I change our main category pages to product listing pages?
With the thought of improving user experience, as well as rankings in Google, I'm considering changing our main category pages to product listing pages (with sub-categories remaining, still). These main category pages are very standard and don't link to any informational content, such as buyers guides, etc. What's driven this is the latest Google core update. I've noticed our main competitor (who we were out-ranking before... but not now) now uses this approach. I can see the benefit from a user perspective, i.e. less clicks to reach products. What's the pros/cons from an SEO point of view, please? Could the potential duplication of content be an issue? For context, we have about 2,000 products and website is on Magento 2.
On-Page Optimization | | alifeofjoy1 -
Duplicate Page Titles
It seems as though we are being flagged for duplicate page titles when really they are slightly different. Is it better to remove the "dart board" or "dart board backboard" from all the product titles? We were doing this for optimal SEO - to rank for the search of "dart board" - but is it really hurting us? for example, our product titles are: Obama dart board backboard, Texas dart board backboard, Oklahoma dart board backboard, etc. Yet they are being flagged as duplicate titles.
On-Page Optimization | | DartsDecor0 -
Impact of number of outgoing links on Page Rank of an optimized page?
What is the current best practice on preferred number of outbound links on a page you are trying to rank with: According to online resources form a pure page rank perspective a high number of outbound follow links can have a negative impact not only on child pages but also the page itself
On-Page Optimization | | thomaspro
http://pr.efactory.de/e-outbound-links.shtml Other resources suggest that particularly placing high quality outbound links on a page (nofollow) increases the trust and authority of a page Are there any other elements to keep in mind? Is the best practice to avoid any follow links on a page you want to rank well in Google for? Thanks /T0 -
Too many on page links
Hello, I have a page that isn't ranking very well. http://nicontrols.com/uk/drives-motors/variable-speed-drives According to the MOZ research tools I have too many on page links. I believe most of these are a result of the advanced filtration options on the left hand side of the page. I don't want to remove the filters as they are extremely useful for customers but I am also worried about the number of links Anyone get any ideas about the number of links? Should I care?
On-Page Optimization | | DavidLenehan0 -
Optimizing web page
Hi I have implemented most of the suggestions, which are offered threw SEOMOZ on our web site www.zaposlitev.net. But rankings are not improving. Could anyone help please? Thanks Tomaz
On-Page Optimization | | tomaz770 -
Page architecture
We have some good content on our site, particularly relating to UK employment law. One section on unfair dismissal is split into 9 pages - there is a fair amount of legal detail. The question is whether we should combine it all into one "mother of all unfair dismissal" page just to satisfy the Google monster or keep in as it is. Some of the individual pages rank on page 1 already. If we change the architecture are 301 redirects the best way to handle the changing urls? The other more important issue is whether it is easier to read it all on one page or split it. Keeping G happy may not actually keep our users happy. As the content is quite dense we want to ensure we don't overload people. Any thoughts appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | dexm100 -
Canonical issue
Hi, Very new to seomoz but very impressed. First report has shown me that I have duplicate pages. Some seem to be duplicate titles and some were duplicates of pages i found on the server. however the main problem is it seems to be picking up pages with www and without it which I have a vague idea is a canonical issue. so it throws up pages like this: http://web-writer-articles.co.uk and http://www.web-writer-articles.co.uk I want it just to pick up pages with www Firstly should it be picking up both and if not how can I make amendments so that it is only picking up pages which include www ? thank you for your help, louandel15
On-Page Optimization | | louandel150 -
On-page: Over optimized images?
Hello guys. I have a small question about an on-page optimization for images. What I have: good title tag / good url structure good content (NOT keyword shuffled, its real content, for real people) images / gallery uploaded to folder named same as article name. For example: Great tips for bloggers [article name], great-tips-for-bloggers [folder name]. So my question is: Will Google harm me for this "too good" paths to images, article related image filenames, with mask like [gtips-img01], and if all images have titles / alt tags? Thank you guys.
On-Page Optimization | | infoo130