Does Bing support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers?
-
anyone know^
-
Yeah, I'm honestly not 100% sure on the HTTP header version, but I'd bet they don't support it. It won't hurt to try it, though, and you'd at least cover Google - I think it's probably a good best practice for PDFs that have HTML equivalents.
-
Hey Peter,
I am attempting to add the HTTP Header for PDF Files. I really feel that this can be a bonus for sites that do have duplicated PDF content, especially on large e-commerce based sites.
I figured that they(Bing) didnt support it, and it sounds like it is probably not considered in the form of an HTTP Header
I may have to consider conditional logic and/or create a dynamic robots.txt file to disallow these PDF files for all other search engines, while serving up canonical HTTP Headers for Google, assuming that Bing doesnt support it.
It would be good to try and test, I may just end up doing that
-
I don't believe that Bing supports the HTTP header version of rel="canonical". They do technically support the link attribute (their comment about it being a "hint" was from 2009) - Duane confirmed that last year (I asked him point blank). Although, honestly, experiences vary and many SEOs claim that their support is inconsistent even for the link attribute.
Honestly, when it comes to canonicalization, when in doubt, try it. The worst that can happen in most scenarios (implemented properly) is that it just doesn't work.
Out of curiosity, why are your trying to use the HTTP Header version. Is it a non-HTML file (like a PDF)?
-
Hi Brandon
"No "Bing does not support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers, Bing isn’t supporting the canonical link element. Bing says canonical tags are hints and not directives, So 301 redirects are your best friend for redirecting, use rel=”nofollow” on useless pages, and use robots.txt to keep content you don’t want crawled out. When you have duplicate problems due to extra URLs parameters, use the URL Normalization feature.
-
I think you guys are confused. There is a difference between the rel="canonical" HTTP header, and a rel="canonical" tag.
I understand their stance with regards to the tag, but wonder if they even consider the canonical in the form of an HTTP Header.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/supporting-relcanonical-http-headers.html
-
Does Bing support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers?
** No.
Bing posted: "This tag will be interpreted as a hint by Live Search, not as a command. We'll evaluate this in the context of all the other information we know about the website and try and make the best determination<a> of the canonical URL</a>. This will help us handle any potential implementation errors or abuse of this tag."
-
Well Brandon, Bing has officially said that they see it as only a hint and determine in their senses as to what is right, but SEO folks do use the tag and I don't think anyone has yet had a problem. You can have a glimpse at the latest SEOmoz talk on this too.
Cheers,
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
-
Software "card" carousel results
Hi all! Does anyone have advice for getting a software product to appear in the card results at the top of SERPs? Example https://www.google.com/search?q=budgeting+software&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS784US784&oq=budgeting+software&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2194j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 dzTpe2B
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SimpleSearch0 -
Are "feed" Backlinks an issue? - Vigorous Fickle in the rankings in past two months
Hi All! I have been observing a vigorous fickle in my rankings since past two months. Some first page keywords have moved to the second page. Some of my observations from the backlink audit rose below questions: Q1. Are large # of backlinks from "feed URLs" harmful in any way? If yes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ishrat-Khan
Q2. Am I supposed to get webmasters take these down or block their own feed URL?
Q3. The backlinks come in huge numbers from reliable websites. Do I need to remove the backlinks just because of the huge number?
Q4. What factors to look for if rankings started fluctuating in past 2 months? Note: these backlinks from "feed" are from the websites who posted our editorials. Backlink Example: http://xyz.com/categories/abc/feed/0 -
HTTP to HTTPS Question
Hello, I have a question regarding SSL Certificates I think I know the answer to but wanted to make sure. One of our clients’ site uses http for their pages but when they started creating Registration forms they created a full duplicate site on https (so now there are two versions of all of the pages). I know due to duplicate concerns this could be an issue and needs to resolved (as well as the pros and cons of both) but if they are already set up with https does it make sense to just move everything there or in some instances would it pay to keep some pages http (using canonical tags, redirects, htccess…etc)? – Most of the information I found related to making the decision prior to having both or describing the process but I couldn’t find anything that specifically related to if both are already present. I thought that the best approach because everything’s already set up is to just move everything over to the more secure one but was curious if anybody had any insight? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ben-R0 -
How to redirect an url in .htaccess when "redirect 301" doesnt work
I have an odd page url, generated by a link from an external website, it has: %5Cu0026size=27.4KB%5Cu0026p=dell%20printers%20uk%5Cu0026oid=333302b6be58eaa914fbc7de45b23926%5Cu0026ni=21%5Cu0026no=24%5Cu0026tab=organic%5Cu0026sigi=11p3eqh65%5Cu0026tt=Dell%205210n%20A4%20Mono%20Laser%20Printer%20from%20Printer%20Experts%5Cu0026u=fb ,after a .jpg image url, and I can't get it redirect using the redirect 301 in .htaccess to the properly image url as I use to do with the rest of not found urls eg: /15985.jpg%5Cu0026size=27.4KB%5Cu0026p=dell%20printers%20uk%5Cu0026oid=333302b6be58eaa914fbc7de45b23926%5Cu0026ni=21%5Cu0026no=24%5Cu0026tab=organic%5Cu0026sigi=11p3eqh65%5Cu0026tt=Dell%205210n%20A4%20Mono%20Laser%20Printer%20from%20Printer%20Experts%5Cu0026u=fb to just: /15985.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Status0 -
Bad use of the Rel="canonical" tag
Google is currently ranking my category page instead of our homepage for our key term and we would rather have our homepage rank for the term. Would it be a bad idea to rel="canonical" our category page to our homepage? Our homepage is optimized to rank for the keyword and has more PR than our category page. However, I don't really know if this will have negative repercussions. Thanks, Jason
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jason_3420 -
Merging blog post tags within static page - Rel = Canonical?
As a blogger, I use a combination of categories and tags in order to organize my content. I do index tags because they've been very powerful for SEO purposes, but there are certain keywords in which I'd like to be able to create an entirely separate static page with the tagged posts merged onto it. So in other words, this is what I'd like the landing page to be: www.website.com/keyword as opposed to www.website.com/tags/keyword Because of this, I'm uncertain what I need to do with that tag page. With this, I would assume that www.website.com/tags/keywords needs to be indexed, but what would be the wise thing to do? Do I place a rel=canonical on www.website.com/tags/keyword to the static page? Do I do a simple re-direct? Do I just leave it indexed? Will it dilute my desired landing page? Would appreciate all comments and thoughts. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | longview0 -
How are pages ranked when using Google's "site:" operator?
Hi, If you perform a Google search like site:seomoz.org, how are the pages displayed sorted/ranked? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic0 -
How to handle "2" homepages?
Came across an interesting problem. A site has the traditional homepage of site.com and ranks okay. Later I found that another "homepage", site.com/home.html that ranks well for several terms but actually has old branding and semi-up-to-date content. Site.com/home.html has a solid linking profile but not as strong as the current homepage (site.com). The question I have is should I try to salvage the page or 301 redirect to site.com? Thank for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2comarketing0