Help I don't understand Rel Canonical
-
I'm really stuck on how to fix up Rel Canonical errors on a Wordpress site. I went in and changed all the URLs to remove the www and added / to the end.
I get this message on page analysis details:
<dt>Canonical URL</dt>
<dd>"http://www.some-url.com.au/",</dd>
<dd>"http://some-url..com.au/", and</dd>
<dd>"http://some-url..com.au/"</dd>
<dd>Well the first one with the www doesn't exists and the second two urls are the same! (Note that I have removed the actual URL for this post)</dd>
<dd>I'm not sure how to read and fix the errors from the reports ether. The only issues I can see is that the 'Tag Value' has the www and the 'Page Title - URL' doesn't have the www.
</dd> -
Yeah, unfortunately, on a CMS or template-driven site, it's really easy to put a canonical tag in place that impacts the wrong pages. Hopefully, you caught it in time.
The 270 notices in are system are just telling you that 270 URLs we crawled had a canonical tag pointing to a different page. In this particular case, it was a problem, but it isn't always an issue.
Unfortunately, with the bad canonical tag in place, it's tough to tell why they were there before. This is usually just a notice, and non-critical, but once the bad canonicals clear out, let us know if you're still getting the notice (it may take a couple of weeks to go away).
-
I think I know what I have done wrong. I placed this code line in the header instead of the index:
I only did this last week, so hopefully the damage won't last long. I still don't understand the 270 Rel Cononical errors, because they were already there. Is this a Wordpress problem?
-
I just checked, and it actually looks like you've got a potentially serious problem. All of your canonical tags that I've seen are pointing to the home-page, even archives and blog posts. This will essentially de-index those pages. Something is set up badly - that canonical tag should only appear on the actual home-page.
Since this is public, I won't reveal details, but look at the, for example, the canonical tag on your "About" and "Services" pages - they're pointing to the home-page.
-
So whats the best way to fix the 270 Rel Cononical errors? How do I actually tell Google what URL is the same pages as another URL?
-
The basic problem, and it's actually confusing to a lot of people, is that what you think of as a "page" is the physical file on your server (like your home-page). What Google thinks of as a page is a URL. So, if multiple URLs go to the same place, they look like duplicate copies to Google (who sees them as all different pages).
It's especially common with home-pages, where you can have www vs. non-www, root ("www.example.com") vs. the filename ("www.example.com/index.php"), etc. If those variations get crawled and indexed by Google, the duplicates can dilute your index and weaken your ranking ability. So, rel-canonical helps tell Google that those variations are all the same page.
-
Zapprabbit,
I would like to underline the main reason of canonical tag usage.
We use canonical to eliminate duplicate content which is cause by different paths to the same content.
In order to eliminate this, you point out to search engines which of the paths is the one that you are optimizing for (which path you want to be indexed).
So let's take your example:
<dd>"http://www.some-url.com.au/",</dd>
<dd>"http://some-url..com.au/", and</dd>
<dd>"http://some-url..com.au/"</dd>
All of the above are different versions of the index.php (wordpress), right?Ok so you have the following:Index.php is shown as:
- http://www.some-url.com.au
- http://www.some-url.com.au/
- http://www.some-url.com.au/index.php
- http://some-url.com.au
- http://some-url.com.au/
- http://some-url.com.au/index.php
all the links above are different paths for Search Engines.
Now you put a canonical tag into the header of index.php which point out for "www.some-url.com.au". What happens?
Search Engines now crawl all versions of your index.php, but they know that they only need to index one version: www.some-url.com.au
What happens from link juice point of view?
If people will start linking to http://some-url.com.au/ or http://www.some-url.com.au/index.php or any other version of your index.php file the link juice will be targeted to the canonical version in some portion (aprox. 85% because you will loose some "juice").
I hope that is clearer now
Gr.,
Istvan
-
The bit I'm stuck on is what am I looking for when I click on the Cannonical URL Tag?
Duplicated URLs? Too many URLs pointing to the same place?
I know I must sound stupid but I just can't get my head around the problem.... Any pointers?
-
Hi Zapprabbit, For you to understand the Rel Cannonical errors you must visit the Cannonical URL Tag.
In wordpress these cannonical url errors are fixed up with all in one seo wordpress plugin.
I hope that your query had been solved.
-
Hi Zapprabbit,
You have the following issue:
1. You didn't proper place the canonical
2. you miss the non www. -> www. 301 redirect
So let's take it step by step:
1. Canonicals: In order to have the chance to set the canonicals right, I would advice you to use the Yoast WP plugin. On the same page you will have how-to articles and usage tips for the plug-in.
2. 301 redirect: http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php
This should solve your issue.
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
-
Does RSS Feed help to rank better in Google?
Hello, I heard RSS Feed helps in ranking. However, I am not sure if I should enable RSS Feed or not. Whenever I publish an article on my site , I see that many other websites have leeched my Feed and get's the same article I written published with a nofollow backlink to my website article. The worst part is that my article doesn't appear in Google search, but the website which copied my article gets ranked in Google. Although the article gets index on google (checked by using site:website.com). Although some articles show up after 24 hours by ranking higher from the sites which copied my article. Any idea what should I do? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | hakhan2010 -
How do I remove a Canonical URL Tag?
Some of my report cards say I have too many canonical URL tags. However, there is no information no how to delete one. Can someone give me a link or explain? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Can you help with quality and interesting content ideas?
Hi I'm ranking for "online biology degree" and "online wildlife biology degree" but I have bad content and I receive almost 100% bounce rate. Can you help me with ideas on good content and interesting information I can provide for people looking for "online wildlife biology degree" and "online biology courses" "biology degree online" Every idea would be appreciated. Yoseph
On-Page Optimization | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
SEOmoz's On-page Checker upto date?
Helllo Mozzers, Just wondering if SEOmoz's on-page optimisation checker is upto date with google recent updates? If not... what do you suggest?
On-Page Optimization | | Prestige-SEO0 -
Using rel="author" on product descriptions
Unique and effective product descriptions can be one of the most expensive investments that go into building a retail website. I would consider them part of the "intellectual property" of a company. These descriptions are also one of the most often pirated types of content. Some product descriptions have been grabbed and used by hundreds of pirates. When people grab your product descriptions it creates a duplicate content problem, it also starts cutting off your long-tail traffic. The discussion topic here is.... Have you heard of anyone using rel="author" on product pages with substantive content? Do you think there is any value in doing that? Is this an abuse of rel="author" Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | EGOL1 -
I changed my site from HTML to PHP and I need to get some help.
Ok...so the other day I went from HTML to PHP in every part of my website. I want to know the best option for me for redirecting my pages from HTML to php. I had my site scanned with SEOMoz and I was given many 404 errors which is not at all good. I do not have any pages of my site linking to any of these html pages. All of the site links have been updated. I have checked 3 times. I have never created a robots.txt file so I would love to get a little help with this part. I was thinking it would be best to tell Google not to worry about these pages in the file. I kept the pages up and I plan to remove all code with them so that no content shows up if someone visits but the issue with that is my site is already indexed as HTML. I want to have the HTML pages redirect to the PHP without worrying that my visitors will land on my site via Google onto an HTML page. I hope I am making sense. What is the best advice you can give me. I need all pages to redirect to PHP. I used an htaccess redirect from all HTML to PHP but when I get so many of them added I get an error on my site saying too many redirects. Seriously need help.
On-Page Optimization | | TrendyHost0 -
Correct use of Canonical link vs 301 redirect
Hi All, Seeking yet more advice. SEOMOZ tools have told me I have duplicate content on one of my sites and I am keen to clean this up. I am not to familiar with the following so thought I would ask. The duplicate content is shown on : www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/index.html Obviously I only see index.html when I check the code so what is the best method of resolving the duplicate content, Canonical or 301? Can you give me an example 🙂 Thanks all
On-Page Optimization | | wedmonds0 -
Not making a change of the 100's in crawl Diagnostic
Based on the PRO crawl Diagnostics – if we don’t make a change on 1 page, does that just affect the SEO on that one page, or does it affect the SEO on all pages of the site? E.g. If we get a “Too many on page links” for a certain page that we don’t really want to rank for – does not fixing that particlaur page affect the site as a whole? Hope I explained this ok..
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0