Implementing rel=canonical in a CMS
-
Hi Guys,
We have an issue with duplicate content caused by dynamic URLs, so want to implement rel=canonical. However this isn't easy due to the way out CMS works.
These were pulled from SEOMoz scan:
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1&perpage=10&sales_group=NULL&filter_colour=&filter_size=&sortby=RELEV&inStock=NO&resfilter=
and are obviously the same page. As far as I can see I have two options.1. To implement the canonical meta tag only on page 1.
2. To implement the canonical tag so that I add ?page=X
so
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
would be
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1Will this work?
Thanks
Rob
-
Ideally, you'd fix the crawl path, but that may be tricky (unless they've patched the CMS). You could add the canonical to just the "page=1" version, but admittedly that's a bit code-intensive.
An alternate idea - that is fairly Google-friendly. You could add a "View All" version and then point the canonical on all search pages to that version. Especially since all is only 2 pages, that could work well in your case and you wouldn't have to worry about all the variants or search results not getting crawled.
-
Still I would advice to talk to Sanderson first, because maybe they have met the same issue on several clients.And have developed something to resolve it.
Webmaster tools can be helpful too just as Bede said.
-
Hi Istvan,
Thanks for your comments. I have contacted Sanderson but as @Bede suggests, I might try and do this in webmaster tools
-
Hi Bede,
I did think about that a while back, the issue is that we are an ecommerce site, so I don't want to run the risk of excluding page 2,3,4 etc from being crawled. However, I think you might be right - this may have to be the way forward. Currently we have 3165 products and 9495 pages of duplicate content, so it is something I need to get fixed.
Thanks, Rob
-
Just throwing this out there, but, could rel=canonical be augmented or assisted in this case by URL parameters in webmaster tools?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1235687
-
@Nicolai: maybe this could be a solution: http://drupal.org/project/nodewords
@Rob: I am searching for a solution. Did you try contacting http://www.sanderson.com regarding this issue?
-
Hi Istvan,
Thank you very much - take your time It's deeply appreciated.
-
Hi Nicolai,
More than possible in the evening I will have more time to check things. I will look for both Drupal and Elucid solutions.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Hi Rob / Istvan,
@ Rob, I hope you don't mind that I "steal" your thread, that's not my intention. I have what seems to be the exact same problem as you (as described in this threat), and I can't seem to find a solution for it.
@Istvan - my CMS is Drupal, and I guess I have the exact same problem as Rob(?).
Again guys: Apologies for staling this thread, I hope it's ok. I just saw it and was very happy to find not only the question written by Rob, but also someone who seems to have an idea of what to do about it.
Thanks in advance, and good day both of you.
Nicolai
-
Hi Rob,
I will check and get back to you in a few hours.
Hopefully we'll find something for you
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Hi Istvan,
It is a system called Elucid from Sanderson. It is basically a multi-channel platform. The problem content all run off the same template, which is the issue.
Thanks
-
Hi Rob,
What CMS are you using? Maybe we could link a few very good plugins which will help you out with this situation.
Gr.,
Istvan
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
-
Understanding why our new page doesn't rank. Internal link structure to blame? + understand canonical pages more.
Hi guys. Sorry it's an essay...BUT, i think a lot of you will find this an interesting question. This question is in 2 (related) parts, and I imagine it would be an 'advanced' SEO question. Hoping you guys can help bring some real insight 🙂 Always amazed at the quality for this forum/ community. **Context... ** We had a duplicate content issue caused by this page and it's product permutations, so we placed canonical tags on all the product permutations to solve it. Worked a treat. However, we now have more **product ranges. **We now sell Diaries, Notebooks & Music books, which are clearly different from one another. So...we've placed canonical tags on all the product permutations leading back to the 'parent' theme. In other words, all the diary permutations 'lead back' to the diary page. All the notebooks permutations 'lead back' to the main notebook page. So on and so forth. Make sense so far? Context end..... Issue. Amazingly our Diary page outranks our notebook pagefor the search term 'Design your own Notebook'. The notebook page is well optimised for this search term, and the diary page avoids the word 'notebook' altogether (so no keyword cannibalisation going on). Possible reason? Our Diary page has a vast amount of internal links to it throughout our site. The notebook page has only a few. Could this be the issue? If so, what reading/ blogs/ content/ tools would you recommend to help understand and solve this problem? i.e) Better understanding internal link structure for SEO. 2nd part of the question (in the context of internal linking for SEO). When there are internal links to a page with a conical tag does that 'count' towards the 'parent page', or simply towards that specific page? I really hope that makes sense. If it's clear as mud just shout. Isaac. EDIT: All pages in question have been indexed since we added these changes to the site.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
What is the Impact of Canonical to a Canonical Page?
hey folks, How does google respond to this, canonical to a canonical page? i.e page A is canonical to Page which is already/also canonical to PAGE C. Thanks In advance AK
On-Page Optimization | | AnkammaRao0 -
Rel canonical tag on a single page site?
I have a wordpress theme site which essentially is all in 1 page. Do I need to use rel-canonical tag? It would just loop?
On-Page Optimization | | graftene0 -
Disappearing Rel=Canonical Code
Hi, I've been getting a lot of rel=canonical warnings from seomoz. I went into the original pages and pasted in plain text the following code: link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/blog/my-awesome-blog-post"< (the > are reversed). After a few crawls I couldn't see any effect from posting the code. When I went and checked again, it didn't stay in the wysiwyg editor. It disappeared! We are using Drupal 6. Could someone tell me what code I should be pasting? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OTSEO0 -
Should I use rel=canonical in this case
Hi SEO pros, I am working on a website competing on the keyword "USA maps" and would appreciate your advice and comments on the issue below. The site has one major page for USA maps and like 5-6 smaller pages under different categories, e.g. US travel maps (under Travel Maps category), US travel guides (under Travel Guides), US atlases (under Atlases), etc. The smaller pages do not rank in search results and are not optimized well for any keyword. Here are my questions: #1. Do you think that if I add rel=canonical to the main USA maps page from all small pages that will help get higher ranking of the main page? #2 Or should I better try to optimize these small pages for the keywords they target (e.g. "US travel maps") and try to send link juice to the main page from text link within the content? Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | ParisChildress0 -
Rel=canonical Query
Hello Everyone, We have just launched our new ecommerce site for flooring in the UK. I have run through the first crawl and there are 549 instances of rel=canonical including the homepage? Is this a major issue in any way, i have never had to tackle it before and i would appreciate any advice that could be offered on the subject. Many Thanks Andrew
On-Page Optimization | | DFD20120 -
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing?
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing? I had "twin" domains so I redirected my .com to www..com and now I have a lot of Rel Canonical Links.
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Canonical tag for home page
This question was asked before but I didn't see a clear answer to it. If I've got a site that has as it's home page: http://www.mysite.com/, and there are many references within the site back to the home page that point to /index.php, should I include a canonical tag in the index.php page like this: to avoid a duplicate content issue, and to have all juice from both links combined into one?
On-Page Optimization | | wcksmith0