Are pages with a canonical tag indexed?
-
Hello here,
here are my questions for you related to the canonical tag:
1. If I put online a new webpage with a canonical tag pointing to a different page, will this new page be indexed by Google and will I be able to find it in the index?
2. If instead I apply the canonical tag to a page already in the index, will this page be removed from the index?
Thank you in advance for any insights!
Fabrizio
-
Yes, I will look into doing that on GWT.
Was a nice and useful chat indeed! Thank you again.
-
Sorry Fabrizio I got mad with my old answer
that canonical doesn't make sense with a noindex, with noindex follow.you're completely fine.
Summing up I think that you have many parameters so you should try to write them down and define the role of each one.
Then add them in GWT and choose there which are the ones which doesn't add any value and which you want to "block" (instead of putting a noindex).
The valuable ones (the one which adds value and changes content) should contain the self canonical and paginated next/prev. If you can get rid of unesful parameters it could be better so to have cleaner and shorter urls.
Just be sure that you're mainly using the most important parameters so you're consistent with your strategy.
Hope this will clear your doubts, it was a nice chat!
-
Yes, actually I could get rid of the lpg parameter (it wasn't really needed!), so now the tag definitions are (for the 3rd page of the Guitar index):
<LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">next</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">prev</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3)">
Now, the only doubt I still have is to add or not add the noindex tag to the page when it is requested to be displayed in a different way (such as the "table view" or a different item display order). In my opinion, if I stick with the canonical tag I don't need a noindex directive. What do you think?
-
Yeah, to be fair, I'm not clear on what all of the additional parameters (like "lpg=") do, so this can get tricky fast. Basically, look at it this way:
If the URL is:
example.com/page=3?param=xThen the tags should point to:
Rel=prev:
example.com/page=2?param=xRel=next:
example.com/page=4?param=xRel=canonical:
example.com/page=3 (no parameters)Some parameters may not be indexed and/or functional, though, so individual cases can vary. You may choose to ignore some parameters in Google Webmaster Tools, for example. It gets tricky as the parameter list grows.
-
Mememax, after thinking I have some doubts though about what you have suggested.
Why I want to put a noindex tag to the page displaying the list in "table view" if I already have a canonical tag pointing to the "regular view" page? Wouldn't the canonical tag be enough for the purpose of telling that the "real" canonical page is the "regular view" version? I am asking this because if I want to apply a noindex tag to that kind of different view, I may want to do the same to the list displayed with a different order, and for any other different way of displaying the list, etc... hence just using the canonical tag would be appropriate, pointing always to the "regular list" view, no matter what kind of "filtering" or "different view' option is selected. What do you think?
In other words, I don't think I need to include a noindex tag for any different kind of view the user requests as long as I provide a canonical tag pointing to the regular view list.
Am I correct?
-
Yes, thank you Mememax, I agree with you 100%. That makes perfect sense and I will work on that tomorrow morning. I am eager to know Dr. Peter thoughts and confirmation.
On my side, I think I got it cleared-up now. Thank you very much again!
-
Thank you ! That makes sense now.
-
Hey Fabrizio, I think that what Google states in their guidelines is that you have two choices:
- if you have a view all page, you should noindex and follow all your other pages so google will deliver only that page
- if you don't have a view all page or if you prefer to show paginated series (i.e. to make pages lighter and quicker to deliver to users) you may consider to use rel next/prev.
In this second case it may happen that you also add filters or session ids in the urls of those pages, in that case you should consider adding a self referentail canonical tag to avoid duplicates. But this is only if you cover this case, if you're looking to canonicalize correctly your paginated series you may not use the self canonical tag, because if not properly implemented this may get you a bit of extra work.
In this page for example
I found this:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=0">
Which I don't think is what you want to do.
Also if you set the page to view as a table: your url changes to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1
and while the canonical should remain the same (well done but I think you should get rid of the lpg parameter in the canonical), the rel next prev should change accordingly IMO.
So instead of being:
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60you should offer the next and prev page of the filtered url:
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60&viewlistflag=1
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20&viewlistflag=1Or in this case (since the content is almost the same you may consider the list page as the canonical of the table one putting there a noindex.
Summing up, IMO: in this page http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3
you'll have:
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
(optional) a self canonical to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3In this page (and in other filtered pages if you have apply the same idea):
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1You'll have:
noindex,follow and canonical to the list page:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3maybe dr peter can correct me if I'm wrong but I think this should be more consistent like this. Sorry for the huge answer
-
Wow, yes - sorry about that. I've updated it. Google original write-up actually covers this case, too (it's toward the end):
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
-
Please, have a look at the page below, I have modified the canonical tag as suggested:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40
Is that correct?
Thank you again very much.
-
Thank you Peter, I guess you meant to have the "canonical" tag as last tag in your example above, and also the previous rel=next and rel=prev definitions should be inverted:
Am I correct? That makes sense. If so, I will update my site to reflect this.
Thank you for the link!
-
This gets tricky fast. Google currently wants rel=prev/next to contain the parameters currently in use (like sorts) for the page you're on and then wants you rel-canonical to the non-parameterized version. So, if the URL is:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40
...then the tags should be...
Yeah, it's a bit strange. They have suggested that it's ok to rel-canonical to a "View All" page, but with the kind of product volume you have, that's generally a bad idea (for users and search). The have specifically recommended against setting rel-canonical to Page 1 of search results, especially if you use rel=prev/next.
Rel=prev/next will still show pages in the index, but I've found it to work pretty well. The other option is the more classic approach to simple META NOINDEX, FOLLOW pages 2+. That can still be effective, but it's getting less common.
Adam Audette has generally strong posts about this topic - here's a good, recent one:
http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284
-
Thank you for your post, and I think you have just opened a doubt I had, and that's exactly what also concerned me.
Have a look at this typical category page of ours:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html
For that category pagination, I have implemented the rel=prev/next as suggested by Google, but being afraid to be penalized for duplicate content, I also put a canonical tag pointing at the first page of that index. Should I have put the canonical tag pointing to the page series itself?
Something like:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2
for the second page instead of the general:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html
as I am currently doing?
Thanks!
-
I have to disagree on this one. If Google honors a canonical tag, the non-canonical page will generally disappear from the index, at least inasmuch as we can measure it (with "site:", getting it to rank, etc.). It's a strong signal in many cases.
This is part of the reason Google introduced rel=prev/next for paginated content. With canonical, pages in the series aren't usually able to rank. Rel=prev/next allows them to rank without clogging up the index (theoretically). For search pagination, it's generally a better solution.
If your paginated content is still showing in large quantities in the index, Google may not be honoring the canonical tag properly, and they could be causing duplicate content issues. It depends on the implementation, but they recommend these days that you don't canonical to the first page of search results. Google may choose to ignore the tag in some cases.
-
Thank you very much, that makes perfect sense. In my case, I am talking exactly about paginated content, and that's probably why all pages are in the index despite they are canonicalized to point to the main page. So, I guess that even if you have thousands of paginated pages indexed (mine is a pretty big e-commerce website), that's not going to be an issue. Am I right?
-
Normally the only thing which will prevent a page from ranking is noindex tag. If you don't want to have it indexed just noindex it, if that page has been laready indexed, put the noindex tag and delete from index using GWT option.
Concerning the canonical tag thing, it will consolidate the seo value in one page but it won't prevent those page to appear in rankings, however you may have two cases:
- the two or more pages are identical. In that case google may accept the canonicalization and show always the original page.
- the two or more pages are slightly different, it's the case of paginated pages which are canonicalized using rel next/prev. In that sense the whole value will be consolidated in page 1 but then the page which will be shown in the rankings will be the one which responds to that query, for example if someone is looking for blue glass, google will return the page which shows blue glass listing if that's different from the first one.
Hope this may help you!
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
-
Google indexing wrong pages
We have a variety of issues at the moment, and need some advice. First off, we have a HUGE indexing issue across our entire website. Website in question: http://www.localsearch.com.au/ Firstly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localdirectories
In Google.com.au, if you search for 'plumbers gosford' (https://www.google.com.au/#q=plumbers+gosford), the wrong page appears - in this instance, the page ranking should be http://www.localsearch.com.au/Gosford,NSW/Plumbers I can see this across the board, across multiple locations. Secondly
Recently I've seen Google reporting in 'Crawl Errors' in webmaster tools URLs such as:
http://www.localsearch.com.au/Saunders-Beach,QLD/Electronic-Equipment-Sales-Repairs&Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA This is an invalid URL, and more specifically, those query strings seem to be referrer queries from Google themselves: &Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA Here's the above example indexed in Google: https://www.google.com.au/#q="AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA" Does anyone have any advice on those 2 errors?0 -
URL Parameters as a single solution vs Canonical tags
Hi all, We are running a classifieds platform in Spain (mercadonline.es) that has a lot of duplicate content. The majority of our duplicate content consists of URL's that contain site parameters. In other words, they are the result of multiple pages within the same subcategory, that are sorted by different field names like price and type of ad. I believe if I assign the correct group of url's to each parameter in Google webmastertools then a lot these duplicate issues will be resolved. Still a few questions remain: Once I set f.ex. the 'page' parameter and i choose 'paginates' as a behaviour, will I let Googlebot decide whether to index these pages or do i set them to 'no'? Since I told Google Webmaster what type of URL's contain this parameter, it will know that these are relevant pages, yet not always completely different in content. Other url's that contain 'sortby' don't differ in content at all so i set these to 'sorting' as behaviour and set them to 'no' for google crawling. What parameter can I use to assign this to 'search' I.e. the parameter that causes the URL's to contain an internal search string. Since this search parameter changes all the time depending on the user input, how can I choose the best one. I think I need 'specifies'? Do I still need to assign canonical tags for all of these url's after this process or is setting parameters in my case an alternative solution to this problem? I can send examples of the duplicates. But most of them contain 'page', 'descending' 'sort by' etc values. Thank you for your help. Ivor
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ivordg0 -
"No index" page still shows in search results and paginated pages shows page 2 in results
I have "no index, follow" on some pages, which I set 2 weeks ago. Today I see one of these pages showing in Google Search Results. I am using rel=next prev on pages, yet Page 2 of a string of pages showed up in results before Page 1. What could be the issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
What to do when you buy a Website without it's content which has a few thousand pages indexed?
I am currently considering buying a Website because I would like to use the domain name to build my project on. Currently that domain is in use and that site has a few thousand pages indexed and around 30 Root domains linking to it (mostly to the home page). The topic of the site is not related to what I am planing to use it for. If there is no other way, I can live with losing the link juice that the site is getting at the moment, however, I want to prevent Google from thinking that I am trying to use the power for another, non related topic and therefore run the risk of getting penalized. Are there any Google guidelines or best practices for such a case?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeAir0 -
Indexing a several millions pages new website
Hello everyone, I am currently working for a huge classified website who will be released in France in September 2013. The website will have up to 10 millions pages. I know the indexing of a website of such size should be done step by step and not in only one time to avoid a long sandbox risk and to have more control about it. Do you guys have any recommandations or good practices for such a task ? Maybe some personal experience you might have had ? The website will cover about 300 jobs : In all region (= 300 * 22 pages) In all departments (= 300 * 101 pages) In all cities (= 300 * 37 000 pages) Do you think it would be wiser to index couple of jobs by couple of jobs (for instance 10 jobs every week) or to index with levels of pages (for exemple, 1st step with jobs in region, 2nd step with jobs in departements, etc.) ? More generally speaking, how would you do in order to avoid penalties from Google and to index the whole site as fast as possible ? One more specification : we'll rely on a (big ?) press followup and on a linking job that still has to be determined yet. Thanks for your help ! Best Regards, Raphael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pureshore0 -
How long does google take to show the results in SERP once the pages are indexed ?
Hi...I am a newbie & trying to optimize the website www.peprismine.com. I have 3 questions - A little background about this : Initially, close to 150 pages were indexed by google. However, we decided to remove close to 100 URLs (as they were quite similar). After the changes, we submitted the NEW sitemap (with close to 50 pages) & google has indexed those URLs in sitemap. 1. My pages were indexed by google few days back. How long does google take to display the URL in SERP once the pages get indexed ? 2. Does google give more preference to websites with more number of pages than those with lesser number of pages to display results in SERP (I have just 50 pages). Does the NUMBER of pages really matter ? 3. Does removal / change of URLs have any negative effect on ranking ? (Many of these URLs were not shown on the 1st page) An answer from SEO experts will be highly appreciated. Thnx !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PepMozBot0 -
Canonical tag usage.
I have added canonical tags to all my pages, yet I just don't know if I have used them correctly - do you have any ideas on this. My url is http://www.waspkilluk.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simonberenyi0 -
Canonical tag vs 301
What is the reason that 301 is preferred and not rel canonical tag when it comes to implementing redirect. Page rank will be lost in both cases. So, why prefer one over the other ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050