Rel Canonical tag using Wordpress SEO plugin
-
Hi team
I hope this is the right forum for asking this question.
I have a site http://hurunuivillage.com built on Wordpress 3.5.1 using a child theme on Genesis 1.9. We're using Joost's Wordpress SEO plugin and I thought it was configured correctly but the Crawl Diagnostics report has identified an issue with the Rel Canonical tag on the sites pages.
I have not edited the plugin settings so am surprised the SEOMoz Crawl has picked up a problem.
Example:
Page URL is http://hurunuivillage.com/
Tag Value http://hurunuivillage.com/ (exactly the same)
Page Authority 39
Linking Root Domains 23
Source Code
Considering the popularity of the plugin I'm surprised I have not been able to find tutorials to find what I'm doing wrong or should be doing better.
Thanks in advance.
Best
Nic
-
I appreciate all your responses.
Paul, thanks for your detailed reply.
Best
Nic
-
Unfortunately, Nic, the SEOMoz tool does a really bad job of explaining that the Notices section of the on-page reports does NOT mean those areas have problems. The tool is simply informing you that those specific elements appear on your website. It is then up to you to decide whether they're appropriate or not. (The exact wording is "Notices are interesting facts about your pages we found while crawling". Pretty vague)
In the case of the canonical URLs, they're definitely a good thing and as neither you nor Oleg see any problems with them, all is fine.
As an example, that Notices section would also tell you if it found no-follow tags. If those had been added accidentally, they could be disastrous, so having the tool tell you they exist could warn you that someone had made a mistake. Or it could simply be that you put them in place on purpose. See? Judgement call.
Hope that helps;
Paul
-
SEOmoz alerts you because they're not really needed. They will not hurt you.
-
Maybe SEOMoz crawl has encountered a problem with your self-canonical tags. As Oleg told you, you don't have any issue with your canonical tags, it's just a matter of personal opinion to use self canonicals or not.
If you're afraid of possible scraper re-publishing your content and if you use url-based user sessions it may be worthwhile to have. But it doesn't hurt in any way.
-
Thanks for the quick reply.
Because the install is "out-of-the-box" I expected they were right.
What is SEOMoz trying to tell me about the tags? -
Your canonicals looks all good to me, I wouldn't worry about it.
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
-
Missing Canonical Tag for a PDF document
Error: Missing Canonical Tag
Technical SEO | | ahmadmdahshan
But URL is not a webpage it is a PDF document, is this fixable?0 -
Rel=canonical redirect form sign-up to homepage
hi guys, just an idea- in our product- TrackTest.eu we have couple of authoritative websites linking directly to our Sign-up page. Does it make sense to use rel=canonical on Sign-up page with pointing to the homepage so we will pass some link juice to homepage ? I understand that it is not a use how was canonical designed (it is not duplicated content) and don't want to screw anything. Thanks
Technical SEO | | tracktest.eu0 -
301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?
Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.
Technical SEO | | ztalk1120 -
Is it a good idea to use the rel canonical tag to refer to the original source?
Sometimes we place our blog post also on a external site. In this case this post is duplicated. Via the post we link to the original source but is it also possible to use the rel canonical tag on the external site? For example: The original blogpost is published on http://www.original.com/post The same blogpost is published on http:///www.duplicate.com/post. In this case is it wise to put a rel canonical on http://www.duplicate.com/post like this: ? What do you think? Thanks for help! Robert
Technical SEO | | Searchresult0 -
Rel=Canonical Header Location
Hello, I've been trying to get our rel=canonical issues sorted out. A fellow named Ayaz very kindly pointed out that I'm trying to put the code into the wysisyg editor, but this might not be the best place to put the code. We are using Drupal 6. Where do I insert the code? head> <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/blog/my-awesome-blog-post"> Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
How to use rel canonical?
Hi, I am having some questions about this and I think you can help me on this. Here I have the example of my problem: pagination: Suppose that I have a new with 2 pages http://www.espectador.com/noticias/208907/fernando-pereira-encuesta-de-cifra-prendio-una-lucecita-amarilla-en-el-pit-cnt you can access the first page by different ways: www.espectador.com/1v4_contenido.php?m=&id=250419&ipag=1 http://www.espectador.com/1v4_contenido.php?m=&id=250419 http://www.espectador.com/noticias/250419/alvaro-vega-fa-creo-que-cosmo-fue-usada-por-bqb-para-evitar-una-subasta-a-la-baja-y-asi-quedar-con-las-manos-libres Same meta descr, same body with different URLs. Can I use rel canonical in the file 1v4_contenido.php that point to the friendly url? <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[http://www.espectador.com/noticias/250419/alvaro-vega-fa-creo-que-cosmo-fue-usada-por-bqb-para-evitar-una-subasta-a-la-baja-y-asi-quedar-con-las-manos-libres](view-source:http://www.espectador.com/noticias/250419/alvaro-vega-fa-quotcreo-que-cosmo-fue-usada-por-bqb-para-evitar-una-subasta-a-la-bajaquot-y-asi-quotquedar-con-las-manos-libresquot)"/> do I have a loop here? The rel canonical can goes in the page 1? Thanks
Technical SEO | | informatica8100 -
Wordpress Canonical Problem
I'm using wordpress for my website but m unable to implement Canonical tag property for pages under the same category, Like for matt's blog: The Tag is same .. for all pages under that category: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/ & http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/page/2/ is it some hack or some plugin ? please suggest! thanks
Technical SEO | | AnkitRawat0 -
How does the FSS jQuery plugin affect SEO?
Looking to create a full screen sliding site for optimum use on tablets. Found this: http://codecanyon.net/item/fss-full-screen-sliding-website-plugin/full_screen_preview/159103 What is the general feeling on using FSS in terms of SEO? Should it be avoided? What's the alternative? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | 9xbmarketing0