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
-
Unsolved Moz is showing a canonical error that dont belong.
Hi guys, and thanks for this excellent source of information. i have an issue with the moz system because is telling to me that i dont have canonical instructions but i have canonical instructions on all my pages, so... im confused because maybe im not understanding what the system want to show to me. if you can help me i will be very gratefull. here you can see a page that have the canonical instruction. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14U_-Sgu_NQaB7kMBH3AguHQMHyHX9L8X/view?usp=sharing and here you can see what is reporting to me the MOZ system. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pqgSC-V9WOyBPvQEr06pbqpLf_w7-q8J/view?usp=sharing this is happening on 19 pages, and all the 19 pages have the canonical instruction.
On-Page Optimization | | b-lab
thanks in advance guys.0 -
"Google-selected canonical different to user-declared" - issues
Hi Moz! We are having issues on a number of our international sites where Google is choosing our page 2 of a category as the canonical over page 1. Example; https://www.yoursclothing.de/kleider-grosse-groessen (Image attached). We currently use infinite loading, however when javascript is disabled we have a text link to page 2 which is done via a query string of '?filter=true&view=X&categoryid=X&page=2' Page 2 is blocked via robots.txt and has a canonical pointing at page 1. Due to Google selecting page 2 as the canonical, the page is no longer ranking. For the main keyphrase a subcategory page is ranking poorly. LqDO0qr
On-Page Optimization | | RemarkableAgency1 -
How do you implement an SEO site structure with content that falls under two silos?
We primarily produce two different types of content: concise fact sheets on topics and video briefings + transcripts of topics. Often these two content types cover the same topic area and since we're currently siloing by content type, these pages end up competing against each other for rankings. Advice on a site structure that'd avoid these issues?
On-Page Optimization | | jay_elsie1 -
The correct way to rel=canonical
When adding the rel=canonical tag to a landing page inside a folder, should the tag read: or With or without the index.php? TY KJr
On-Page Optimization | | KevnJr1 -
How Do I Get Rel=Author to Work Via Wordpress SEO by Yoast?
I have read Yoast's tutorial and others on how to get rel=author to work properly on my site (http://injuryattorneyshouston.com). Here are the results I get from the Google Structured Data Testing Tool: "Authorship is working for this webpage." "rel=author markup has successfully established authorship for this webpage." "Publisher markup is verified for this page." All seems well except for this: hatom-feed | hatom-entry: | |
On-Page Optimization | | cbizzle
| Error: At least one field must be set for HatomEntry.Error: Missing required field "entry-title".Error: Missing required field "updated".Error: Missing required hCard "author". |
| Error: At least one field must be set for HatomEntry.Error: Missing required field "entry-title".Error: Missing required field "updated".Error: Missing required hCard "author". | Does anyone know how to fix this?0 -
Canonical issue
Hi again, my SEOMOZ software has found some "notices" related to certain pages regarding canonical tag. Here are some examples: El primer campamento de kitesurf en tarifa, somos tks!
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/
1 0
El primer campamento de kitesurf en tarifa, somos tks!
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/?attachment_id=
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/
1 0
Aviso Legal y Política de Privacidad
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/aviso-legal-y-politica-de-privacidad/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/aviso-legal-y-politica-de-privacidad/
1 0
campamento de kitesurf tarifa en un complejo natural con tks!
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-kitesurf/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-kitesurf/
1 0
campamentos bilingues para niños y jóvenes en tarifa, tsk!
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamentos-bilingues-para-ninos/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamentos-bilingues-para-ninos/
1 0
Condiciones Generales
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/condiciones-generales/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/condiciones-generales/
1 0
Contacto
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/contacto/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/contacto/
1 0 Can anyone tell me what does mean? I guess it has to do with the impact of some kind of plugin since I haven't done anything. Thanks in advanced.0 -
E commerce Website canonical and duplicate content isssue
i have a ecomerce site , i am just wondering if any one could help me answer this the more info page can be access will google consider it as duplicate and if it does then how to best use the canonical tag http://domain.com/product-page http://domain.com/product-page/ http://domain.com/product-Page http://domain.com/product-Page/ also in zencart when link product it create duplicate page content how to tackle it? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics0 -
New CMS system - 100,000 old urls - use robots.txt to block?
Hello. My website has recently switched to a new CMS system. Over the last 10 years or so, we've used 3 different CMS systems on our current domain. As expected, this has resulted in lots of urls. Up until this most recent iteration, we were unable to 301 redirect or use any page-level indexation techniques like rel 'canonical' Using SEOmoz's tools and GWMT, I've been able to locate and redirect all pertinent, page-rank bearing, "older" urls to their new counterparts..however, according to Google Webmaster tools 'Not Found' report, there are literally over 100,000 additional urls out there it's trying to find. My question is, is there an advantage to using robots.txt to stop search engines from looking for some of these older directories? Currently, we allow everything - only using page level robots tags to disallow where necessary. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0