Rel="canonical" questions?

[DoRM]

On our site we have some similar pages for example in our parts page we have the link to all the electrical parts you can see here http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/53/160/Electrical  and we have a very similar page going from our accessories page to electrical here http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/72/221/Electrical  We are thinking about putting rel="canonical" from the accessories electrical page to the parts one.  We would do this for several pages not just this one.

Thoughts???

[DoRM]

We put rel=canonical on it.  Now there are several other reasons that we have way to many pages indexed.  Big project coming soon, I hope!

[Dr-Pete]

Oh, ouch - yeah that's definitely has potential to spin out of control. I think rel=canonical would actually be great there, because the product page really is 100% duplicated.

[DoRM]

just read your article

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world

The Indexation “Cap”

Similarly, there’s no set “cap” to how many pages of a site Google will index. There does seem to be adynamic limit, though, and that limit is relative to the authority of the site. If you fill up your index with useless, duplicate pages, you may push out more important, deeper pages. For example, if you load up on 1000s of internal search results, Google may not index all of your product pages. Many people make the mistake of thinking that more indexed pages is better. I’ve seen too many situations where the opposite was true. All else being equal, bloated indexes dilute your ranking ability.

I liked it thanks!

[DoRM]

Just started here about 1 month ago.  We are thinking that it is the search causing this issue.  We should have it fixed in the next few weeks.  For example if you go to http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/search?term=dirt+bikes and then click on the first result. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/43/53/210/1157/-/25928/Dirt-Tricks-KTM-Timing-Chain-Tensioner/dirt+bikes it has the search result as part of the url for tracking.  I am thinking this could be causing hundreds of thousands of urls.  We will turn this into a parametersso they can still track it but google will not index it.  Any thoughts on this, or maybe it is to far off topic.  Thanks for all your input.

[Dr-Pete]

I was about to say that 85 sounds significant, but then I noticed that Google has indexed 1.13M pages on your site. For your link profile/authority (which is respectable but still pretty medium-sized) that's a massive index. I strongly suspect you have a ton of duplicate content that's completely unrelated to this. You've probably got bigger fish to fry, honestly.

One thing you might want to look at is your search pagination, as that can easily spin out thousands of pages. Unfortunately, really sorting this out takes a pretty thorough audit.

[DoRM]

of the first pair (ones like these ttp://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/53/160/Electrical   http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/72/221/Electrical) around around 15 in each Classification and there are 5 classification so 75.

of the second pair (like this

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/m/43/53/2/ATV-Parts-KAWASAKI

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/m/43/72/2/ATV-Accessories-KAWASAKI

)  about 17 per classification so 85.

Third level like (http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/v/43/72/10864/ATV-KAWASAKI/BRUTE-FORCE-300-2013 http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/v/43/53/10864/ATV-KAWASAKI/BRUTE-FORCE-300-2013)  there are about 1100-1300

[Dr-Pete]

How many pairs of these duplicates are there across the whole site?

[DoRM]

I agree one URL would be best; however, they said how the system is set up not really possible right now.

There are only two page that are the same and they are the same here on the next leave down too.

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/m/43/53/2/ATV-Parts-KAWASAKI

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/m/43/72/2/ATV-Accessories-KAWASAKI

So you think if there are just two page that are the same it is nothing to worry about?  I know adding one or two paragraph of good content not just seo copy to  the http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/53/160/Electrical   http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/72/221/Electrical  Having one focus on parts and the other one accessories.  I know that is not my ideal situation but a possibility.  I would rather just have one URL like you suggested.

Thoughts?

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, I think Matthew's right about the duplication - it looks like these are basically landing on the same results. It's not a disaster, but it's certainly going to look like thin content. I guess I'd want to step back and ask if these two paths are really necessary - could they converge on one URL if you're really serving up exactly the same products? The best canonicalization solution is ultimately not to have multiple URLs.

The canonical tag is slightly odd here, just because the pages aren't 100% duplicates, but it's probably fine. Honestly, a lot of it boils down to how many search pages you've got across the site and how many are duplicated. If you're talking about half-a-dozen, it's probably not worth worrying about. If you're talking about hundreds of pages, then cleaning up your architecture and removing these duplicates could have real dividends for SEO (and possibly make life easier for your visitors, too).

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Your welcome.

Have a great day.

[DoRM]

Thanks for your input.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

There are a few things here that I think you should be aware of.

1 if you leave it like that, you will have duplicate content issues, because both of those pages are the same, the pictures are just in different places.

2. The page http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/72/221/Electrical   is a pr3 and the other is a pr1.  I would personally keep the pr3 page and 301 redirect the other page to that page so you no longer have those duplicate content issues on your site. That way if you have anyone still visit that page through old links they will still end up on that pr3 page.

3. The url structure, is a bit messy for your site.  I generally advise others to have something a long these lines. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/electrical  this is an SEO friendly url.  I am not saying the ones you have now won't work, it's just a bit messy that's all.  Personally though if your getting good traffic to it, I wouldn't mess with it at all.  Now if you were just starting out I would say change them asap.

In the future when making new pages, I would set it up to make a proper url structure.

Have a great day.

Matthew Boley