Canonical Meta Tag Best Practices
-
I've noticed that some website owners use canonical tags even when there may be no duplicate issues.For examplewww.examplesite.com has a canonical tag.......rel="canonical" href="http://www.examplesite.com/" />www.examplesite.com/bluewidget has a canonical tag.......rel="canonical" href="http://www.examplesite.com/bluewidget/" />Is this recommended or helpful to do this?
-
I prefer to think of it as "index control", since PR sculpting has a history of being abused, but you've covered the big ones. Obviously, good site architecture is the first step. If they tag exists in 2012, I pretty much covered it in this article:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
-
Sorry about not clarifying that
Tools or tags used to channel spidering and indexing and circulate page rank (e.g. robots.txt file, pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev", x-robots-tag, etc.....)
I just read an article on pagerank sculpting in visibility magazine that inspired my question
-
Sorry about not clarifying that
Tools or tags used to channel spidering and indexing and circulate page rank (e.g. robots.txt file, pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev", x-robots-tag, etc.....)
I just read an article on pagerank sculpting in visibility magazine that inspired my question
-
Sorry, not sure what you mean. Site-wide tags, or tags that perform canonicalization?
-
Thanks for the post Peter!
In addition to the canonical tag are there any others that you guys have heard of people having success with?
-
I'd generally agree with (and thumbed up) Adam - it's harmless and can sometimes help sweep up any stray URLs. I find it especially useful for the home-page, which naturally has a lot of variants.
I'd only add that you often see this in place not so much because it's strategic but because it's easier to implement, especially in a CMS. Telling the system to add a canonical to every version but the canonical URL is a lot more of a pain, so most people don't do it. Originally, Google and Bing suggested this was their preferred method, but it was so immediately obvious that it's easier to put the tag on all versions that I think they completely reversed that.
I've never seen it cause any harm, and I've seen it help a bit more than once.
-
You're welcome.
It's important to note that the use of canonicals or redirects is not intended for directing page rank. They are primarily used to direct users to the most appropriate page and to avoid any duplicate content issues with search engines.
-
Thanks Adam for posting a response. Very helpful. I read an article about pagerank sculpting and it got me thinking about the best use of canonical, robots.txt files, etc...
My site currently does not have any canonical tags or any of the others used to channel page rank. I have been told that the proper use of certain tags can possible help with rankings by directing page rank to the more important pages.
-
I'll add this to what Crimson said,
It doesn't hurt to have canonical tags on all pages.
-
Hi Nathan,
Personally I think it is good practice to use canonical tags for all pages (even those without duplicates).
Although you may not have duplicates of these pages on your site, other sites may try to scrape the content of your site including its pages. As you have the canonical tag on these pages, any content scraper will also add the canonical tag that points to the page on your site. Therefore it is a good idea to have the canonical tag as a preventative measure also.
Hope that helps,
Adam.
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
-
Question on Indexing, Hreflang tag, Canonical
Dear All, Have a question. We've a client (pharma), who has a prescription medicine approved only in the US, and has only one global site at .com which is accessed by all their target audience all over the world.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jrohwer
For the rest of the US, we can create a replica of the home page (which actually features that drug), minus the existence of the medicine, and set IP filter so that non-US traffic see the duplicate of the home page. Question is, how best to tackle this semi-duplicate page. Possibly no-index won't do because that will block the site from the non-US geography. Hreflang won't work here possibly, because we are not dealing different languages, we are dealing same language (En) but different Geographies. Canonical might be the best way to go? Wanted to have an insight from the experts. Thanks,
Suparno (for Jeff)1 -
Alt tags seo boost
Do alt tags really give you a boost in terms of ranking or is it more for ranking in google images ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
SEO Best eCommerce Practice - Same Product Different Keywords
I want to target different keywords for the same e-commerce product. What's the best SEO practice? I'm aware of the pitfalls to keyword stuffing. The product example is the GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera. The same action camera can be used in many different activities, e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue, law enforcement etc. These activities target completely different markets, so naturally the keywords are different. I have three strategies to tackle the issue. Please let me know which one you think is best. 1) Create different keyword landing pages with a call-to-action to the same conversion page Each landing page will be optimized for the targeted keywords e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue etc. Obviously this will be a big task because there will be numerous landing pages. Each page will show how the product can be used in these activities. For Surfing, the content would include surfing images with the GoPro Hero 5, instructions on how to mount the camera to a surfboard, waterproof tests, surfing testimonials and surfing owner reviews, etc. The call-to-action leads to a generic product conversion page displaying product information such as specs, weight, video formats, price, shipping, warranty etc. The same product page will be the call-to-action for all keyword landing pages. Positives Vast number of targeting long-tail keywords, numerous landing pages Good specific user experience who may be looking for "underwater action camera" (specific mounting instructions related to surfboards etc.) Less duplicate content as there is only one product page showing the same information Negatives Challenging to come up with each page for the vast amount of activities. Inbound Link Considerations
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisCK
Inbound links from publications can link directly to the product page or the keyword landing page Surf Magazine may link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
"GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5 2) Create different keyword landing pages with call-to-action to directly add product to cart Similar to the first option, but the call-to-action on the landing page is to Add Hero 5 to Cart. The user experience will be similar, the content creation challenges will be similar, but the techy product info e.g. specs, price, video format, etc. will be displayed on the same landing page. Positives Same benefit to long-tail keywords targeting Same benefit to a good, specific user experience Negatives Same challenges to create each long-tail keyword landing page Since there is no aggregate "product page", inbound links will be split between the landing pages Splitting of Page Authority to each landing conversion page Surf Magazine will link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
Cycling Magazine will link to:
"Cycling Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/cycling-camera 3) Create conversion-focused product page with casual blog about keywords This is currently what GoPro has chosen - GoPro Hero 5. The product page displays the many different types of activities on the same page. The page is focused on the user experience with images of the action camera being used in different cool activities, showing its versatility. Note, very little long-tail keyword targeting on this page, instead they could use a broad keyword "action camera". To target long-tails, maybe a blog can be used brand ambassadors displaying the product being used in the various activities. Positives User experience focused Higher conversion rate Less content creation work Inbound links go to the same product page, building Page Authority Negatives Poor ranking with short-tail keyword (GoPro is not even in Top 10 SERP for "action camera") Poor ranking with long-tail keywords, (GoPro doesn't rank for "diving camera, cycling camera, surf camera") For blogging the long-tail keywords, who really converts from landing on a blog of the actual seller?! I hope those three strategies were explained clear enough and have enough of a differentiator. Please let me know what you think!0 -
Capitalization of first letter of each word in meta description. Catches more attention, but may this lead to google ignoring the meta description then more frequently?
Capitalization of first letter of each word in meta description. Catches more attention, but may this lead to google ignoring the meta description then more frequently? Same for an occasional capitalized FREE in meta description. Anybody had experience with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse1 -
Do I put a canonical tag on the page I am pointing to?
Lets say B i a duplicate page of A (main page). I understand I have to put canonical tag under B to point to A. Do I also put canonical tag under the main page A? Is it necessary? I understand that A would then tell Google that it is preferred page of A? Is this a correct understanding?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andypatalak0 -
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 -
Best practice for site maps?
Is it necessary or good practice to list "static" site routes in the sitemap? I.e. /about, /faq, etc? Some large sites (e.g. Vimeo) only list the 'dynamic' URLs (in their case the actual videos). If there are urls NOT listed in a sitemap, will these continue to be indexed? What is the good practice for a sitemap index? When submitting a sitemap to e.g. Webmaster tools, can you just submit the index file (which links to secondary sitemaps)? Does it matter which order the individual sitemaps are listed in the index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shawn810 -
Do I need a canonical tag on the 404 error page?
Per definition, a 404 is displayed for different url (any not existing url ...). As I try to clean my website following SEOmoz pro advices, SEOmoz notify me of duplicate content on urls leading to a 404 🙂 This is I guess not that important, but just curious: should we add a cononical tag to the template returning the 404, with a canonical url such as www.mysite.com/404 ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nuxeo0