Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Adding Rel Canonical to multiple pages
-
Hi,
Our CMS generates a lot of duplicate content, (Different versions of every page for 3 different font sizes). There are many other reasons why we should drop this current CMS and go with something else, and we are in the process of doing that. But for now, does anyone know how would I do the following:
I've created a spreadsheet that contains the following:
Column 1: rel="canonical" tag for URL
Column 2: Duplicate Content URL # 1
Column 3: Duplicate Content URL # 2
Column 4: Duplicate Content URL # 3
I want to add the tag from column 1 into the head of every page from column 2,3, and 4.
What would be a fast way to do this considering that I have around 1800 rows.
Check the screenshot of the builtwith.com result to see more information about the website if that helps.
Farris
-
Yeah, wish I could give you a simpler answer, but I'm afraid it might end up being a little tricky. Hit the biggest problems first, and at least you can manage time/money a bit. The one bright side is that the rules should be no harder to code in ColdFusion than anything else (PHP, ASP, whatever). It's just the core logic that's tricky.
-
That's what I thought. I need to find someone in the company who knows cold fusion and go through it.
Thanks for your help though. I appreciate it.
Farris
-
Unfortunately, the rules may differ from page to page and will be entirely dependent on how your pages are generated. If it's just a matter of the "index.cfm" version vs. root ("/") versions of pages, those canonical should be straightforward. For the other parameters, though (like "i", "fs", etc.), it depends entirely on the function of those parameters.
I know ColdFusion reasonably well, and even given that, I couldn't give you a one-size-fits-all rule that would solve the problem. It really has to be guided by your site structure and code/data logic. Personally, I'd start with the pattern that generates the most problems and solve that one first. In other words, if one template (like "/press-releases") generates dozens or hundreds of duplicates, deal with that first. If you solve the top 3-4 problems, you may clean up quite a bit. That could be more effective than trying to fix everything at once.
-
Here's a spreadsheet sample. I did what Roberto suggested. I have a column with the ready for every duplicate content URL.
The site is dynamic. That was the main problem I was facing, I'm not sure how to set the canonicals on each page without having to go into the html and copy the tag from the spreadsheet to the manually.
I added the screenshot of builtwith.com in the main question hoping it would give anyone insight as to how I would code rules to set the canonicals.
-
Could you provide an approximate example that matches your real situation (a fake domain is fine, but with the same basic format)? This is a situation where fake examples that don't match the real situation probably won't help us (or you) much.
Once you have the spreadsheet, how are you going to translate that into tags? If this is a dynamic site, it would be better to be able to code rules to set the canonicals - and potentially much easier.
-
Following the same concept:
- Create a column (Column E) with the following information "then another column (Column F) with ""/>"
- In column G enter the following formula: =CONCATENATE(E1,Cell of Duplicate URL, F3).
The end result will have Column A with the Domain in it. Follow steps 6 & 7 to complete the process.
Feel free to send me a sample spreadsheet with some info and I can set it up for you.
-
Roberto, Thank you for your answer. I just realized that I was unclear when I asked the question. I already have the link containing the canonical tag for each of the URLs ready. That is what column A already contains. I need to add that into the section of the pages in column 2,3, and 4. I'm just unsure how to do this for 1800 rows each containing the correct URL in column A, and in column 2,3, and 4 the URLs of the duplicate content pages that need the link added to the section. Check the image below to see what I mean. I appreciate the effort though Farris
-
Farris,
This is the way I would do it.
You have the following columns created:
- Column A: "canonical" tag for UR
- Column B: Duplicate Content URL # 1
- Column
Duplicate Content URL # 2
- Column
Duplicate Content URL # 1
Follow the next steps:
- Create three more columns with to duplicate columns B, C, D
- Use the following formula on column B "**=CONCATENATE(A1,B1)" **
- Copy the same formula for columns C & D
- Replace the “B1” in your formula for the respective columns (i.e. Column C should have C1.)
- Copy & Paste the content of columns E, F, G (The copied columns with formulas) to all the rows.
- Once copied, the information in columns E, F, G should look like the end result that you want.
- if data is correct, copy columns E, F, G and paste in the same location but use Paste Special and paste values only. This will remove your formulas.
I hope this helps.
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
-
Customer Reviews on Product Page / Pagination / Crawl 3 review pages only
Hi experts, I present customer feedback, reviews basically, on my website for the products that are sold. And with this comes the ability to read reviews and obviously with pagination to display the available reviews. Now I want users to be able to flick through and read the reviews to help them satisfy whatever curiosity they have. My only thinking is that the page that contains the reviews, with each click of the pagination will present roughly the same content. The only thing that changes is the title tags which will contain the number in the H1 to display the page number. I'm thinking this could be duplication but i have yet to be notified by Google in my Search console... Should i block crawlers from crawling beyond page 3 of reviews? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Train4Academy.co.uk0 -
Canonical or hreflang?
I have four English sites for four different countries, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I want to share some content between the sites. On the pages that share the content, which is essentially exactly the same on all 4 sites, do I use the hreflang tags like: or do I add a canonical tag to the other three pointing to the "origin", which would be the UK site? I believe it is best practice to use one or the other, but I'm not sure which make sense in this situation.
Technical SEO | | andrew-mso0 -
Rel=Canonical For Landing Pages
We have PPC landing pages that are also ranking in organic search. We've decided to create new landing pages that have been improved to rank better in natural search. The PPC team however wants to use their original landing pages so we are unable to 301 these pages to the new pages being created. We need to block the old PPC pages from search. Any idea if we can use rel=canonical? The difference between old PPC page and new landing page is much more content to support keyword targeting and provide value to users. Google says it's OK to use rel=canonical if pages are similar but not sure if this applies to us. The old PPC pages have 1 paragraph of content followed by featured products for sale. The new pages have 4-5 paragraphs of content and many more products for sale. The other option would be to add meta noindex to the old PPC landing pages. Curious as to what you guys think. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Rel=canonical Weebly
My problem is with my website as it says I have duplicate page titles and contents because of a /index.html. It says the duplicate content is due to the fact that my homepage on my website is www.seacandytackle.com but it is also www.seacandytackle.com/index.html because I use weebly. How can I use the tag to fix this? It won't let me do a 301 redirect because it is a home page. How can I fix this? What code would I have to use and which url? Also it says that I have duplicate page content between http://www.seacandytackle.com/index.html and http://www.seacandytackle.comhttp://www.seacandytackle.com but I don't recall having any page that looks like http://www.seacandytackle.com http://www.seacandytackle.com from weebly. How can I fix this issue as well? Thank you for any help. Step by step implementation would be particularly helpful in using the rel= tags to fix these duplicate issues.
Technical SEO | | SeaCandyTackle0 -
Can you noindex a page, but still index an image on that page?
If a blog is centered around visual images, and we have specific pages with high quality content that we plan to index and drive our traffic, but we have many pages with our images...what is the best way to go about getting these images indexed? We want to noindex all the pages with just images because they are thin content... Can you noindex,follow a page, but still index the images on that page? Please explain how to go about this concept.....
Technical SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Home Page .index.htm and .com Duplicate Page Content/Title
I have been whittling away at the duplicate content on my clients' sites, thanks to SEOmoz's pro report, and have been getting push back from the account manager at register.com (the site was built here and the owner doesn't want to move it). He says these are the exact same page and he can't access one to redirect to the other. Any suggestions? The SEOmoz report says there is duplicate content on both these urls: Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/ Your help is greatly appreciated! Sheryl
Technical SEO | | TOMMarketingLtd.0 -
Rel=Canonical on a page with 302 redirection existing
Hi SEOMoz! Can I have the rel=canonical tag on a URL page that has a 302 redirection? Does this harm the search engine friendliness of a content page / website? Thanks! Steve
Technical SEO | | sjcbayona-412180 -
Use webmaster tools "change of address" when doing rel=canonical
We are doing a "soft migration" of a website. (Actually it is a merger of two websites). We are doing cross site rel=canonical tags instead of 301's for the first 60-90 days. These have been done on a page by page basis for an entire site. Google states that a "change of address" should be done in webmaster tools for a site migration with 301's. Should this also be done when we are doing this soft move?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0