Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
-
Very simple,
Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?
Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm
I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original.
Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.
-
For all practical purposes, Google doesn't seem to index pages where it recognizes the canonical as legitimate. You won't find them in a "site:" query, "cache:" command, etc. Google may call that a "filter", but once it's reached that point, the URL is as good as de-indexed. There may be subtle, technical distinctions, but the end result is virtually the same.
-
Not quite. Canonical (per Matt Cutts) is considered a hint as to what the real page is. It doesn't stop the duplicate page from being crawled or indexed (a page that isn't indexed will not show up anywhere in Google for any query), it prevents the duplicate page from winning the duplicate race (i.e. if you don't pick a winner, Google will pick one for you).
-
Thanks Tom (and everyone else for the replies),
So if someone linked to a page with a querystring Google wouldn't index that page because the canonical tag is pointing to a url which doesn't have that query in?
I like the scraped part as well, that in itself makes it worth while.
-
Newegg.com uses this because they have affiliates, searches and numerous other things that affect their query strings.
Remember that ANY change to the query string is seen as a new page. So
domain.com?page=a&link=1
domain.com?page=a&link=2are considered separate pages, even if they return the same content.
Canonical is used to determine which duplicate page "wins" the index race. All other versions are considered duplicate and, thus, devalued.
-
There's a couple of reasons why people might want to do this (and why I do with all my websites)
First of all, the page/site might be scraped and replicated by a bot, particularly if it's an authority domain. Having your canonicals in place to begin with will help reduce the chance of your content being seen as duplicate, should a bot scrape your site.
Another reason would be if a website might generate any additional versions of the page through queries, eg www.domain.com/page.php?query2 - Having a self referring canonical will also tell Google that you want to rank the URL without any other queries, which can help prevent any of those queries appearing in the Google index and/or SERPs.
-
Hi,
I am not an expert, so please do not take my answer very seriously. What you mention, of making a canonical tag pointing to the same URL, looks fine. In my understanding, canonical tags were created to tell the search engines that a page is the right one, even if the system you are using creates address that could look like duplicate content. For example, if you are using a Content Management System like wordpress or Joomla, you could have the following:
-
http://domain.com/date/month/page1 and so on.
Search engines (again, I am not sure, I am just a newbee), could think all this pages are duplicate content, and could penalize you for this. But if you indicate with the canonical tag that the right url is http://domain.com/page1, then you are safe.
I hope somebody with more experience could help you better,
Best Regards,
Daniel
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
-
Keyword ranking for different page than the page optimized
I have optimized "equipment trailer for rent" on this page: http://www.bigtrailerrentals.com/flatbed-trailer-rentals/equipment-deckover. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me why Google has chosen to rank the keyword phrase for this page: http://www.bigtrailerrentals.com/flatbed-trailer-rentals/equipment-24 This is just one example. It has happened on several of my pages / keywords.
On-Page Optimization | | BigTrailerRentals0 -
Your tips for this landing page
http://www.visalietuva.lt/imones/advokatai These are the yellow pages in Lithuanian 🙂 What would be your tips for this of page, to increase rankings? Every single tip is appreciated: The same in English: http://www.visalietuva.lt/en/companies/lawyers (does not have meta descriptions still) THANKS
On-Page Optimization | | FCRMediaLietuva0 -
Rel-canonical
Hi, I am a bit confused. A potential clients website has three versions: http://www. http:// http://dev. In each version they have used the rel=canonical back to each base version. So http://www." http://" http://dev." I would have expected duplicate content but I see only one version of the content when I check using "....." in Google. Using the site: tool I see that all three versions are indexed. When moving through the navigation on them, they all redirect to the one home page - the www version. Any idea what is going on and what should be recommended?Redirecting all versions to the www. version? Is it a problem?
On-Page Optimization | | AL123al0 -
Homepage On-page Optimization
How do you all handle homepage optimization, if you (or a client) offers a variety of services? Our homepage has the strongest link profile of any of our pages, but it lists all the areas of law we cover. Therefore, it has too many keywords and none really rank well. Should we just pick our most profitable areas and optimize for that? www.kempruge.com in case anyone would benefit from looking at the actual page. Thanks, Ruben
On-Page Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Category listing page coming above product pages
A new SEO client we have taken on seem to be hitting most of the points right on with their site and SEO. However one thing that is bugging me is that their category pages i.e. "Footwear" which title tag includes the brands they stock. Is almost always coming up above (if they are ever even found) the product individual pages. Anyone seen this sort of things happening? Very frustrating.
On-Page Optimization | | iboxsecurityltd0 -
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
On-Page Optimization | | Web3Marketing870 -
Rel canonical tag question
Im trying to to fix my duplicate content problem with my catagory pages in my shopping cart. I have read about adding a rel canonical tag to the page so it links back to the main catagory page. So if I add a rel canonical tag to the main catagory page it will show up on every other page for that catagory like page 1 page 2 and so on and it will have the tag linking back to the main cat. That should fix it it right? Now that being said I cant seem to add the tag invetween the head tags. I can add it to the body where I can add content. Will the rel canonical tag work outside the head tags? Any other ideas on this fix? I contacted my people that host the cart to see if they have any features to help this will see what they say.
On-Page Optimization | | Dataken0 -
Optimally, how many times should the key word or phrase you are targeting for a particular page be mentioned or appear on that page?
Our marketing team is debating how many times the key phrase on each of our web store's product pages should include the word/phrase we are trying to be competitive with. Can you advise?
On-Page Optimization | | Glynlyon0