Diagnosing Canonical Errors Is Screaming frog reliable?
-
Morning from suny & warm wetherby UK
On this page http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ screaming frog is citing a canonical error but I'm confused as this piece of code is in place:
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage" />
So my question is please - "Does this page http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ have a caninical error or is screaming frog useless?
Other examples where screaming frog is picking up canonical errors include:
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/Oh forgot to say the preffered version is http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage/
Any insights welcvome
-
Hey,
Long time since the Question, I was just wondering if you worked it out or not.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
I think Screaming Frog is just warning you that the canonical version doesn't seem to match the display URL. They can't really tell (we have the same problem in SEOmoz tools) what the "right" canonical is - they can just warn of a mismatch.
I'm a bit confused as to the purpose of the dual URLs here. The best canonical implementation is to use one URL. The canonical tag can act as a band-aid, but consistency is still the best defense. Having multiple paths to the same page is rarely beneficial.
-
Having spoke to oiur internal helpdesk (Who I trust & do know what theyre talking about) theyve taken a look at:
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/footer-links/left/right-to-manage/
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/
and I'm afraid they have a different perspective which is they see no canonical problem Hey ho think I'll just set my head on fire then maybe things will be more clearer
-
Hi Istvan - your advice is good but ive just discovered its not been implemented! Time to kick some ass, I'll update you
-
Hey,
Any news on how it went? I am curious if that was the problem or not.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Hey,
Maybe this helps you a littlebit: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes
Dr. Pete's article explains well how the status codes work.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Wow great anser, I'm on to this now & will updat you with how things went
-
Hey there!
I think I have found what your problem is with you canonical link
In your code you have:
And probably you are somewhere forcing the URls to have a / at the end.
So basically you are confusing browsers and search engine bots, because they now cannot tell which is the real version:
SE enters the page. Then it sees that the right version should be the one WITHOUT a "/" at the end, then that pages has a 301 redirect to the version which HAS a "/" at the end of the URL (but that has a canonical which points out that the preffered version should be ). So it is a non-ending circle.
So if you add a / to the end of your URl, your problem should be solved.
Final thought: Screaming Frog is working well.
I hope this was a solution.
Cheers,
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
-
Sitemap and canonical
In my sitemap I have two entries for my page ContactUs.asp ContactUs.asp?Lng=E ContactUs.asp?Lng=F What should I use in my page ContactUS.asp ? Is this correct?
Technical SEO | | CustomPuck0 -
Canonical vs 301 for index.php
Hello, we found recently quite a big error our index.php file had no canonical tag nor was a 301 redirect. So we put a canonical tag to it that it's the main www.examle.com duplicate . Now is there any difference in regards to link juice or Google 301 vs canonical tag ? I read that moz did a 301 from their index php. I understand one difference is that user then can Type in the URL if no 301, but I'm interested about ranking effect of it.
Technical SEO | | advertisingcloud0 -
Questions about canonicals
Howdy Moz community, I had a question regarding canonicals. I help a business with their SEO, and they are a service company. They have one physical location, but they serve multiple cities in the state. My question is in regards to canonicals and unique content. I hear that a page with slightly differing content for each page won't matter as much, if most of the content is relevantly the same. This business wants to create service pages for at least 10 other cities they service. The site currently only have pages that are targeting one city location. I was wondering if it was beneficial to use a template to service each city and then put a canonical there to say that it is an identical page to the main city page? Example: our first city was san francisco, we want to create city pages for santa rosa, novato, san jose and etc. If the content for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, city were the same content as the 1st city, but just had the slight change with the city name would that hurt? Would putting a canonical help this issue, if i alert that it is the same as the 1st page? The reason I want to do this, is because I have been getting concerns from my copywriter that after the 5th city, they can't seem to make the services pages that much different from the first 4 cities, in terms of wording of the content and its structure. I want to know is there a simpler way to target multiple cities for local SEO reasons like geo targeted terms without having to think of a completely new way to write out the same thing for each city service page, as this is very time consuming on my end. Main questions? Will making template service pages, changing the city name to target different geographic locations and putting a canonical tag for the new pages created, and referring back to the main city page going to be effective in terms of me wanting to rank for multiple cities. Will doing this tell google my content is thin or be considered a duplicate? Will this hurt my rankings? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
4XX (Client Error)
How much will 5 of these errors hurt my search engine ranking for the site itself (ie: the domain) if these 5 pages have this error.
Technical SEO | | bobbabuoy0 -
Canonical URLs and screen scraping
So a little question here. I was looking into a module to help implement canonical URLs on a certain CMS and I came a cross a snarky comment about relative vs. absolute URLs being used. This person was insistent that relative URLs are fine and absolute URLs are only for people who don't know what they are doing. My question is, if using relative URLs, doesn't it make it easier to have your content scraped? After all, if you do get your content scraped at least it would point back to your site if using absolute URLs, right? Am I missing something or is my thinking OK on this? Any feedback is much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | friendlymachine0 -
Yoast canonical SEO question
Hi I've installed Yoasts SEO plugin. I've just set it up as a campaign in SEOMOZ pro and i now see 14 notices about rel=canonical. I haven't added the rel=canonical myself and is in connection with the Yoast code on the site. Why does it do that and should i do something about it?
Technical SEO | | infocell0 -
Canonical for non-exist URL ?
Hi I have a website what has parameter URL. For example www.example.com/index.php?page_id=1&no=2 I want that search engine see my page URL as; www.example.com/toys/cars But this URL is not exist in my website. And when i externally enter this page it goes to 404 page. If i add canonical url as www.example.com/toys/cars to the page www.example.com/index.php?page_id=1&no=2, what happened ? Is the url at the serp change as www.example.com/toys/cars ?
Technical SEO | | SEMTurkey0 -
Did I implement the Canonical Correctly?
Hello, I am trying for the first time to implement a canonical redirect on a page and would really appreciate it if someone could tell me if this was done correctly. I am trying to do a canonical redirect: -from http://www.diamondtours.com/default.aspx -to http://www.diamondtours.com/ As you will see in the source code of the default.aspx page, the line of code written is: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.diamondtours.com" /> Is this correct? Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Jeffrey Ferraro
Technical SEO | | JeffFerraro0