What if I point my canonicals to a URL version that is not used in internal links
-
My web developer has pointed the "good" URLs that I use in my internal link structure (top-nav/footer) to another duplicate version of my pages. Now the URLs that receive all the canonical link value are not the ones I use on my website. is this a problem and why???
In theory the implementation is good because both have equal content. But does it harm my link equity if it directs to a URL which is not included in my internal link architecture.
-
Thanks again. I hope Google will come out with some real guidelines on this subject. It saves us time arguing with third parties.
For now I will get the canonicals fixed.
-
I think Andy's absolutely right - I've seen too many situations where mixed signals caused crawl/index and even ranking problems. Ultimately, the canonical URL should be canonical in practice and used consistently. Otherwise the canonical tag is just a band-aid.
The other problem is that you naturally end up attracting links to your non-canonical URLs, because those are what people can see. Long-term, that compounds the situation.
Now, is it catastrophic? Unfortunately, that's really tough to say. I've seen situations where Google honored the canonical tag even without internal links and the site was ok. I just think it's a significant, unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, like Andy, I don't know of any clear documentation on the subject.
-
It certainly can't hurt. You might get someone pointing you to documentation relating to this exact problem
Andy
-
I don't know of anything that will explicitly tell you not to do this, but you can find lots of general information here:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
Andy
-
Allright, maybe a good question for the Google Webmaster Help Forum right?
-
Hi Andy,
I agree, it does not seem like a logical solution. Do you know of any documentation on this, maybe even from Google? I would like to give some guidelines to my web developer based on a source.
-
Quite honestly, I would never use a canonical to point to a page that no-one can navigate to. If I were Google, I would look at this and wonder if it was a recommended page, why then was this not the one people can just click on.
Andy
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
-
Does "google selected canonical" pass link juice the same as "user selected canonical"?
We are in a bit of a tricky situation since a key top-level page with lots of external links has been selected as a duplicate by Google. We do not have any canonical tag in place. Now this is fine if Google passes the link juice towards the page they have selected as canonical (an identical top-level page)- does anyone know the answer to this question? Due to various reasons, we can't put a canonical tag ourselves at this moment in time. So my question is, does a Google selected canonical work the same way and pass link juice as a user selected canonical? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Lewald10 -
Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google?
Hi, we re-branded and launched a new website in February 2016. In June we saw a steep drop in the number of URLs indexed, and there have continued to be smaller dips since. We started an account with Moz and found several thousand high priority crawl errors for duplicate pages and have since fixed those with canonical tags. However, we are still seeing the number of URLs indexed drop. Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google? I can't seem to find a definitive answer on this. A good portion of our URLs have canonical tags because they are just events with different dates, but otherwise the content of the page is the same.
Technical SEO | | zasite0 -
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading (used for emphasis)?
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading? My clients are using heading tags for text they want to emphasize and make stand out. Does this affect search rankings for SEO?
Technical SEO | | jthompson05130 -
Competitors link building surely link farming ? but no punishment?
Hi there added a competitors metrics to see what they were doing and to my amazement they seem to have 1000+ links surely this is link farming considering we stay in a very remote area. also why would he be rewarded for this not punished? imgur.com/18dUqNL 18dUqNL 18dUqNL
Technical SEO | | ShauniBROWN2 -
Which url should i use? Thanks!
I have a question regarding how to use my url, we are a Swedish-based website which have the url, http://interimslösning.se/ (that contains the Swedish letter “ö”) so the url can also be written as http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/. Which of the following url should I use for my backlinks, http://interimslösning.se/ or http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/ ? What is the difference between them regarding SEO? And is it good or bad to use letter like "ö" or other characters like that in your url? I was thinking that maybe it is good to use the letter "ö" for local search optimization in sweden, but i don't know.. Thanks in advance! Greetings,
Technical SEO | | Kiwibananlime
Paul Linderoth0 -
URL Change, Old URLs Still In Index
Recently changed URLs on a website to remove dynamic parameters. We 301'd the old dynamic links (canonical version) to the cleaner parameter-free URLs. We then updated the canonical tags to reflect these changes. All pages dropped at least a few ranking positions and now Moz shows both the new page ranking slightly lower in results pages and the old page still in the index. I feel like I'm splitting value between the two page versions until the old one disappears... is there a way to consolidate this quickly?
Technical SEO | | ShawnW0 -
A while back there was a strategy presented about developing games or widgets and then using them for link bait. Is this still a viable strategy to improve ranking?
We are developing a game (might be an app or a widget or both) and are looking for the latest advice about how to leverage it for seo benefit. Can anyone share their recent experience with this? I know it was a strategy used in the past, but what considerations should we be looking at (technically and strategically) as we begin developing. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Technical SEO | | larahill0 -
Internal Linking Structure - help Req'd
I have a website that due to the way in which it was put together a few years back always redirects to a /subdomain folder when the top level domain is entered. When analysing the new SERPS tool i spotted that when the .com domain was assessed it didn't pick up the internal links that were pointing to the /subdomain. Q) Could the /redirect cause a problem when crawled by Google, and if i'm linking back to the homepage should i be using the domain or the subdomain as the link (even though one redirects to the other......)
Technical SEO | | NSJ780