Canonical referencing and aspx
-
The following pages of my website all end up at the same place:
http://example.com/seo/Default.aspx
http://example.com/SEO/
http://example.com/seo
http://example.com/sEo
http://example.com/SeObut we have a really messy URL structure throughout the website.
I would like to have a neat URL structure, including for offline marketing so customers can easily memorize or even guess the URL.
I'm thinking of duplicating the pages and canonical referencing the original ones with the messy URLs instead of a 301 redirect (done for each individual page of course), because the latter will likely result in a traffic drop. We've got tens of thousands of URLs; some active and some inactive.
Bearing in mind that thousands of links already point in to the site and even a small percentage drop in traffic would be a serious problem given low industry margins and high marketing spend, I'd love to hear opinions of people who have encountered this issue and found it problematic or successful.
@randfish to the rescue. I hope.
-
Are those URLs (or URLs like them - I realize they're just examples) actually being used in internal links, or are you just saying that they all resolve? The case-sensitivity thing isn't a huge issue, and the canonical tag would work well for that. Otherwise, you'd have to 301-redirect every possibly version (and 98% of them will never be used).
I'd really focus on fixing the internal links first, and then 301 or canonical the versions you used internally (or that have inbound/external links). For the "Default.aspx" version, I think 301s are a little better, but ASPX can be a bit persistent about that, so it's a bit hard to advise. Sometimes, you are constrained by the platform.
The biggest difference is that a 301-redirect will also redirect people, so they'll be more likely to link to the proper version. The canonical tag only impacts Google. Both work reasonably well, though, and do pass on most link-juice if used properly.
-
Thanks! That's helpful of you!
-
Hi Gutam,
Based on your provided URL's it seems that your website is built using .NET, as your mentioned problem is common problem for these type of sites.
Assuming that your website server is on IIS, it would be best to install both the IIS toolkit and the URL rewriter on your server.
Use the IIS SEO toolkit to first identify all the technical SEO problems and then the URL rewriter to redirect and create your search friendly URL's.
Dave Sottimano (from Distilled) has written a good post on using IIS SEO toolkit for site analysis -http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-every-seo-should-know-about-iis
Here's one pretty good post (abit outdated) on how to deal with the most common URL errors using the URL rewriter - http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/04/20/tip-trick-fix-common-seo-problems-using-the-url-rewrite-extension.aspx
Good Luck!
Vahe
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
-
Relationship Between Cross-Domain Canonical Versions and Backlinks
Hi All, I am looking for some community insight on how backlinks on the different versions of a canonical page are handled for ranking purposes. Suppose that I have two versions of the same page on two different domains: 1. https://www.mysite.com/tshirts <--Canonical Version 2. https://www.mywebsite.com/tshirts <--Non-Canonical Version that points to page #1 Also consider a third domain that is being linked to from the article. Since it is identical content, both pages contain the same outbound links to this page: 3. https://www.myclothing.com I am wondering how the backlink authority transfer is handled for page number two. Since it has the canonical tag pointing to page 1, only page 1 should be considered for indexing/ranking purposes as a whole page. However, my question relates to what happens to backlink flow since both #1 and #2 above contain links to site #3. In the above example, would both mysite.com and mywebsite.com be passing a backlink to myclothing .com, or would it only be the first domain (www.mysite.com) passing link authority since it is marked as the canonical for ranking purposes. Thanks for any thoughts!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Evan_Wright0 -
Does a non-canonical URL pass link juice?
Our site received a great link from URL A, which was syndicated to URL B. But URL B is canonicalized to URL A. Does the link on URL B pass juice to my site? (See image below for a visual representation of my question) zgbzqBy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice1 -
Exact Syntax for Canonical to PDFs for Windows Server
Hi There, I have got in my web several PDFs with the same content of the HTML version. Thus I need to set up a canonical for each of them in order to avoid duplicate content. In particular, I need to know how to write the exact syntax for the windows server (web.config) in order to implement the canonical to PDF. I surfed the web but it seems I cannot find this piece of info anywhere Thanks a lot!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Midleton0 -
Rel="canonical" and rel="alternate" both necessary?
We are fighting some duplicate content issues across multiple domains. We have a few magento stores that have different country codes. For example: domain.com and domain.ca, domain.com is the "main" domain. We have set up different rel="alternative codes like: The question is, do we need to add custom rel="canonical" tags to domain.ca that points to domain.com? For example for domain.ca/product.html to point to: Also how far does rel="canonical" follow? For example if we have:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlliedComputer
domain.ca/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/sub/product.html
then,
domain.com/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/product.html0 -
Canonical tag
Hi all, I have an ecommerce client and on the pages they have a drop down so customers can view via price, list etc. Natrurally I want a canonical tag on these pages, here's the question. as they have different pages of products, the canonical tag on http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7/?sort=price_asc,searchterm=,layout=grid,page=1 is to http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7. now, because the page=7 is a duplicate of the main page, shouldn't the canonical just be to the main page rather than page=7? Even when there is a canonical tag on the /Christmas/page=7 to the /Christmas page? hope that makes sense to everyone!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KarlBantleman0 -
How use Rel="canonical" for our Website
How is the best way to use Rel="canonical" for our website www.ofertasdeemail.com.br, for we can say goodbye for duplicated pages? I appreciate for every help. I also hope to contribute to the SEOmoz community. Sincerely,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZZNINTERNETMEDIAGROUP
Amador Goncalves0 -
Canonical tag vs 301 in this Panda situation - trying to wrap my brain around this!
Here's the situation. Let's say you have a development site that was created on a subdomain such as examplesite.webdesign.com. When the new site, examplesite.com launches, the developer forgot to remove examplesite.webdesign.com from the index. As such, two copies of the site exist. Because the development site existed first, examplesite.com ends up being affected by Panda and drops out of the search results. As a result only the development site is visible on Google searches. I've been trying to wrap my head around whether using canonical tags or 301 redirects would be best. On one hand you could insert a canonical tag on each page of the subdomain to tell Google that the correct version to index is examplesite.com. On the other hand you could do a 301 redirect from every page of the development site to to examplesite.com. Now, here's where it gets complicated. Because the new site has been flagged as a Panda site, in either case will it need to see a Panda refresh in order to be included in the index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes0 -
Help with canonical tag
hello- i got this recommendation <dl> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page</dd> <dd>from my "report card" and i see also that i have a lot of issues with duplicate content but i really dont have any duplicate content on my site.</dd> <dd>the crawl has apparently marked every post in my blog as duplicate page content.</dd> <dd>and the "use canonical tag" suggestion keeps appearing as a fix to my problems.</dd> <dd>could you please help me with ------How do i create a canonical tag?</dd> <dd>is it just rel=canonical?</dd> <dd>and where do i put it?</dd> <dd>i should put it on every page right?</dd> <dd>or with CSS my webmaster could probably do it very quickly right?</dd> <dd>i get the basic concept behind rel=canonical but i cant say i fully understand it -</dd> <dd>i need some help with regard to how and where this tag should be placed.</dd> <dd>thanks,</dd> <dd>erik
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ezpro9
</dd> <dd>.</dd> </dl>0