Which pages should use rel="canonical" links?
-
I have many pages showing up as multiple content. Most of the them belong to product pages for my store, login pages that show up everywhere on the site, etc. I know that I need to use the rel=canonical link in the header but after searching the forum I'm still unsure of what pages need it. Is it the pages that I don't want searched/crawled by Google or the other way around?
Thanks!
Crystal
-
Google will still crawl canonical pages. How soon the index will reflect that will depend on how fast that crawl happens. I'm not sure there's anything you can do to speed that up.
-
Yes, you're right -- they are notices, not warnings. Thanks for the response.
Do you have an answer for my #2 question?
-
You shouldn't be getting warnings. They appear as notices in my campaign and they're there to let you know that the spider found them. The reason you need to know is that canonical has a downside: crawl budget.
Bots still have to crawl your canonical pages. If you add content on a frequent basis, this could impact how quickly that content gets indexed. It's always better to have fewer pages but, when you can't avoid it, there's canonical. That's why SEOMOZ tracks it for you.
-
Follow-up questions:
[1] My site development tool (XSP) has recently added the canonical reference as an auto-generated line of code, every page of my site now has it. Why is SEOmoz warning me that I have hundreds of pages of canonicals if it's supposed to be a GOOD thing?
[2] Google is still seeing the pages without the canonical tag because that's how they were indexed. Will they eventually get purged from their index, or should I be proactive about that, and if so, how?
Thanks for any input.
-
Perfect, thank you! This will be my homework for the evening.
Crystal
-
If you have duplicate content, Google only wants to keep one in their index. It used to be that Google would just pick one but, with canonical, you can pick. Pick what page you want indexed and then put a canonical with the URL of the page you want to keep on the other pages. Google will then keep the page you wanted and ignore the rest.
A visual guide here
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
-
Should we rename and update a page or create a new page entirely?
Hi Moz Peoples! We have a small site with a simple site navigation, with only a few links on the nav bar. We have been doing some work to create a new page, which will eventually replace one of the links on the nav bar. The question we are having is, is it better to rename the existing page and replace its content and then wait for the great indexer to do its thing, or perm delete the page and replace it with the new page and content? Or is this a case where it really makes no difference as long as the redirects are set up correctly?
On-Page Optimization | | Parker8180 -
Building a new page: What on-page SEO would you build in?
Hi all, Building a new page for a fairly competitive keyword. Need to make sure the on-page SEO is pretty top notch, because link building (including internal links) will be difficult. I've optimised the meta description, the alt tags and image names, and included the keyword in the Title Tags. Not a great deal I can do with regards to optimising for mobile or considering migrating to the AMP project because this is handled externally. What else would you suggest? Cheers in advance, Rhys
On-Page Optimization | | SwanseaMedicine1 -
Using Canonical Tags on Every Page
I'm doing competitive research and noticed that one of our competitors (who outranks us) uses canonical tags on every page on their site. The canonical tags reference the page they are on. For example. www.competitor.com/product has a canonical tag of www.competitor.com/product. Does anyone use this practice? It seems strange to me. Thank you, Kristen
On-Page Optimization | | Ksink0 -
Outbound links. External Links.
I have been reading alot on SEO and there is something confusing about having "Outbound links. External Links." on your main ranking page. Some say that We shouldn't have any out bound links. (from Random website) According to Yoast, we should have outbound links. (yoast.com) we should have outbound links but we should add the "no-follow" tag. (from Random website) Q: What should i do and follow?
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
If the answer is yes, how many outbound links is an appropriate amount per page?0 -
Does Rel=canonical affect google shopping feed?
I have a client who gets a good portion of their sales (~40%) from Google Product Feeds, and for those they want each (Product X Quantity) to have it’s own SKU, as they often get 3 listings in a given Google shopping query, i.e. 2,4,8 units of a given product. However, we are worried about this creating duplicate content on the search side. Do you know if we could rel=canonical on the site without messing with their google shopping results? The crux of the issue is that they want the products to appear distinct for the product feed, and unified for the web so as not to dilute. Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | VISISEEKINC0 -
Meta tag "revisit after" - useful?
Hi everybody, I've rarely seen the "revisit after" meta tag during the last 1,5 years. As some of my current client websites are still using it and I'm not sure, if it's still usefull/has any effect, I'd like to hear from the community. Any advices/hints/experiences with the tag? Thanks in advance and cheers from Germany Sven
On-Page Optimization | | targi420 -
What URL Should I use in Google Place Page?
Alright, I have a client that has 1 website and 14 locations. We want to create place pages for each of their locations but my question is which URL should I put in the place page and why? I can put in the root domain into each place page, or should I put in the URL that lands on the actual location on the root. example: domain.com/location1 Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | tcseopro0 -
Does link text "more information" have more weight than a normal link?
Does the anchor text "more information" hold any additional weight than any other anchor text? My suspicion is no, but just wanted to confirm.
On-Page Optimization | | nicole.healthline0