Is this causing me to drop in rank?
-
Today I noticed I was dropping (pretty big jump) for some keywords, so I checked out the source of a page, and noticed that my source code has two canonical urls. One to the home page, and one to the /page-title.
I just changed themes recently, and the dropped happened after I changed themes.
Is this what's causing me to drop in rank for certain terms? You can view the source here:
-
That was great content sir ! i added the comments there - adding the same question here also !
This article is very huge and will print it for better understanding !
My problem with the blog is the Duplicate content is marked as for Search Terms or Tags ! like i have written 10 post about design art, i added tags as "design art" in the tag form. using WordPress.org self hosted website !
-
I'm afraid there's no one, easy answer. I have a comprehensive post about dupe content here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
-
Peter, I just discovered I have tons of duplicate content & titles. How can I fix them? It is hurting.
-
Yeah, looks like I was of no use at all
I'm glad it's working.
-
I'm seeing the bad canonical tag gone now. Are you seeing the same thing? Maybe just had a short-term caching issue.
-
Nope, no content delivery network. This is crazy. No idea what's happening.
-
Nope, no content delivery network. This is crazy. No idea what's happening.
-
We are definitely not seeing the same thing. Are you perchance using a content delivery network? It might just take some time to update if so.
I suggest we both keep an eye on it and make sure that it's fixed for both of us going forward
-
@Carson,
This is so odd. When I look at the page, I see this. Am I seeing something different than what you are seeing?
-
I see the same as you for that post, but I still see the canoncial on posts like this:
This is why I'm thinking you might have fixed it, and we're just seeing an old static version of the page. Re-caching the pages and/or updating posts might fix it up.
-
What's strange is when I view the source on that page, I don't see it:
-
Yes, I do. I'm been clearing the cache.
-
If you guys are both seeing it, I'm really confused. When I look at my source code, I see this:
-
I cleared my cache and I still see it on posts. I suppose it's worth asking if you have a caching/site speed plugin?
-
Just tried a different browser. Weird thing is that I'm seeing it on some pages, but not on others. For example. it's here still:
-
Nope...
-
Are there any admin settings in your theme itself? You may something built in that's re-adding the tag at a higher level in the code. Could be an admin flag needs to be reset.
-
I'm still seeing it as well. When you re-visit header.php now, is the line you deleted still gone?
-
Really? Do you mind clearing your cache and trying again? When I look I'm seeing just the one (correct) canonical.
-
Really? Do you mind clearing your cache and trying again? When I look I'm seeing just the one (correct) canonical.
-
Oh - yeah - that definitely doesn't look good. Probably a holdover from the template. You could just comment it out, but dumping it completely is fine, I suspect.
Unfortunately, I'm still seeing the canonical in the pages I'm checking (?)
-
Thanks Carson,
It looks like I may have figured it out. I checked out the header.php file and noticed this: . So I just deleted it, and it seems to be working fine.
-
Hi there,
Make sure to check any plugins first. Some themes and plugins offer the option to add any code you like to the head - it sounds like there might be a static canonical tag in a field like this. That would be my first thought - let me know if I can be of assistance in fixing this up.
Thanks,
Carson
-
No problem. Thanks!
-
Unfortunately, I'm not a WordPress expert by any means. I'll ping the team.
-
yelp. When I first found the problem, I figured out the theme and the plug in were both adding a canonical url, so I took out the function in the theme to add the canonical url. Everything was working when you looked at the post the other day and noticed there was only 1 canonical url. But today I was looking at some code, and noticed it was back to 2 on each one.
What do you suggest looking at / check out?
-
I'm seeing the 2 canonical tags, but unfortunately, there's almost no way to tell from the outside why the top one is being added. It looks like your plug-in is working correctly. This is a WordPress-based site, correct?
-
@Peter,
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason the canonical is missing up again. All of the pages are using my home page as the canonical url again. No idea what is happening. Can you tell what's going on?
-
@Peter,
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason the canonical is missing up again. All of the pages are using my home page as the canonical url again. No idea what is happening. Can you tell what's going on?
-
Same here. Thanks.
Hope you are doing well.
-
You've got the self-referencing canonical tags in place, which is about the best fix - unfortunately, there's no way to "undo" a bad canonical other than put a good canonical in its place. Hopefully, Google only picked up a few and, given the popularity of your site, they'll re-index pretty quickly.
-
Yes, I caught it. And it did pick up the canonical to the home page...I lost rank on a ton of key words. I'm hoping it gets fixed in the next index.
-
Did you fix it? I'm only seeing one canonical now. That would definitely be bad - if Google picked up the canonical to the home-page, you could collapse a ton of pages into one and effectively knock them out of the index (and, by extension, any ability to rank).
-
Thanks for the reply, but in this case I don't think that would apply.
What's happening is the them is putting 2 canonical urls into each post. The url of the current page, and the home page. So google is getting confused. Trying to fix it now.
-
Usually when you change themes you can have a temporary drop down, this is normal.
Please, read this Q&A there is a very good answer from EGOL: http://www.seomoz.org/q/seo-template-for-new-website
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
-
Lost Rankings Late April Even Though We Have A Mobile Site
I have noticed a significant drop in rankings since late April. It is about a 30% drop in organic from Google. This is despite the fact that we launched a mobile site before the update. What gives? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Web Design | | inhouseseo0 -
Does a Website Overlay Hurt Ranking?
We are looking into personalizing visits on our website. Rather than to write Tb of code on each page, we want to use a little line of Java script on the page, that would allow to place overlay on the site, depending on the visitor. Example: Change the home page picture when a returning visitor comes back on the website and show him/her a different picture bases upon the pages he/she visited prior. Would that overlay be caught by Google and would G have a problem with that? We all know about cloaking, but G does not penalize for heat mapping overlays, for example. Or not to my knowledge they don't. Thanks all for your personal insights! Peter
Web Design | | Discountvc0 -
Image with 100% width/height - bad ranking?
Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.
Web Design | | GeorgFranz0 -
How to make sure category pages rank higher than product pages?
Hi, This question is E-Commerce related. We have product categories dividing products by color. Let's say we have the category 'blue toy cars' and a product called 'blue toy car racer', both of these could rank for the keyword 'blue toy car'. How do we make sure the category 'blue toy cars' ranks above the product 'blue toy car racer'? Or is the category page automatically ranked higher because of the higher page authority of that page? Alex
Web Design | | WebmasterAlex0 -
Duplicate page title caused by Shopify CMS
Hi, We have an ecommerce site set up at devlinsonline.com.au using Shopify and the MOZ crawl is returning a huge number (hundreds!) of Duplicate Page Title errors. The issue seems to be the way that Shopify uses tagging to sort products. So, using the 'Riedel' collection as an example, the urls devlinsonline.com.au/collections/riedel-glasses/ devlinsonline.com.au/collections/riedel-glasses/decanters devlinsonline.com.au/collections/riedel-glasses/vinum all have the exact same page title. We are also having the same issue with the blog and other sections of our site. Is this something that is actually a serious issue or, perhaps, is Google's algorithm intelligent enough to recognise that this is part of Shopify's layout so it will not negatively affect our rankings and can, essentially, be ignored? Thanks.
Web Design | | SimonDevlin0 -
Penguin 2.0 drop due to poor anchor text?
Hi, my website experienced a 30% drop in organic traffic following the Penguin 2.0 update, and after years of designing my website with SEO in mind, generating unique content for users, and only focusing on relevant websites in my link building strategy, I'm a bit disheartened by the drop in traffic. Having rolled out a new design of my website at the start of April, I suspect that I've accidentally messed up the structure of the website, making my site difficult to crawl, or making Google think that my site is spammy. Looking at Google Webmaster Tools, the number 1 anchor text in the site is "remove all filters" - which is clearly not what I want! The "remove all filters" link on my website appears when my hotels page loads with filters or sorting or availability dates in place - I included that link to make it easy for users to view the complete hotel listing again. An example of this link is towards the top right hand side of this page: http://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/agganis-arena-hotels/300382?star=2 With over 6000 venues on my website, this link has the potential to appear thousands of times, and while the anchor text is always "remove all filters", the destination URL will be different depending on the venue the user is looking at. I'm guessing that to Google, this looks VERY spammy indeed!? I tried to make the filtering/sorting/availability less visible to Google's crawl when I designed the site, through the use of forms, jquery and javascript etc., but it does look like the crawl is managing to access these pages and find the "remove all filters" link. What is the best approach to take when a standard "clear all..." type link is required on a listing page, without making the link appear spammy to Google - it's a link which is only in place to benefit the user - not to cause trouble! My final question to you guys is - do you think this one sloppy piece of work could be enough to cause my site to drop significantly following the Penguin 2.0 update, or is it likely to be a bigger problem than this? And if it is probably due to this piece of work, is it likely that solving the problem could result in a prompt rise back up the rankings, or is there going to be a black mark against my website going forward and slow down recovery? Any advice/suggestions will be greatly appreciated, Thanks Mike
Web Design | | mjk260 -
Getting ranked on google
I help run a small real estate site in ireland www.aplacetorent.ie and Im in charge of seo. I have read lots of books over the last year or so and while they offer lots of advice some of them dont actually show you what to do. I have joined distilled and I think its the best thing i have done in the last few weeks and am learning a lot but if anyone has any advice i would be very grateful. Thank you
Web Design | | Kessie0 -
Hom much does getting a mobile website improve the "mobile ranking"?
There's been speculation about Google totally not ranking sites that are not mobile, but as far as I can see many sites rank THE SAME on mobile devices as on regular stationary PCs/lap-tops. I had hoped for a radically improved ranking once a mobile site was built. Or is it just that it takes a TON of time for it to go through and then it gets better or is it like with regular sites that a new mobile site on a sub-domain is parked in some form of mobile-sand-box? Also, does putting a mobile site on a ranking domain, as subdomain help, e.g. m.testingsite.com instead of testingsite.mobi ? Thanks.
Web Design | | yvonneq0