Canonical tag
-
Hi all,
I have an ecommerce client and on the pages they have a drop down so customers can view via price, list etc. Natrurally I want a canonical tag on these pages, here's the question.
as they have different pages of products, the canonical tag on http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7/?sort=price_asc,searchterm=,layout=grid,page=1 is to http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7.
now, because the page=7 is a duplicate of the main page, shouldn't the canonical just be to the main page rather than page=7? Even when there is a canonical tag on the /Christmas/page=7 to the /Christmas page?
hope that makes sense to everyone!
-
Ok, thanks Peter, really appreciate the advice! Ill give that a go and see if that brings down the errors on the website.
-
I'm honestly not entirely sure how rel=prev/next would even be implemented in your current configuration. It would be very complex. My cut feeling is that GWT parameter handling might be a pretty safe first try.
-
Yeah, So would you recommend using either of those options over the rel=next/prev?
-
Oh, so the "Loading More" is basically JS, but Google is crawling it? It might be better if you could use AJAX style ("hash-bang") URLs, and try to keep Google from crawling that at all.
The other option would just be to block the "page=" parameter in Google Webmaster Tools. It's not always ideal (since it's Google-specific), but it might be your easiest bet here.
-
Thanks Peter, it's stumped me somewhat this. The site has JavaScript that loads the new pages so the user doesn't see it in the URL but the pages load in the back end and this is causing thousands of duplicate title and content issues. We don't have a view all page to canonical to and the page load speed is what had my worried that it wouldn't fix the problems
the website is www.thegreatgiftcompany.com - I'd be hugely grateful if you could have a look and let me know what you'd do. Really appreciate your time on this.
-
Yeah, it gets messy. I think I'm on the same page as Dan, but just some clarification. The two "approved" options are:
(1) Canonical all of the paginated series, including filters, to the "View All" version. One warning - Google only recommends this if the view all page loads fast and isn't too huge (and that's just good advice for usability, too).
(2) Using rel=prev/next for the paginated series, but then rel=canonical to point the filtered version to the current page. It's a bit mess.
Here are two good posts on the subject, but I'm afraid they reveal just how messy it is and how much SEOs differ in opinion. No real-world solution is perfect, that I've found:
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284
-
Ok, brilliant. Thanks for your advice.
-
I tend to make the recommendation of having canonicals on paginated pages point to the view all page. The reason for this is that this page will contain all the results, so therefore there will not be any duplicates.
I also believe it is good user experience for people to have all content accessible immediately through infinite scrolling - they can then filter and order as they choose.
For yourexample I would canonical to the /all page.
-
Hi dan, thanks for the reply. We do have an /Christmas/_all page. Are you staying that all the canonicals should go to this structure? We build to the none /_all versions so wouldn't this have a negative effect on rankings?
-
For this example you should create a 'view all' page where all the content is listed in one single view. You should then point the canonical tag to the this page, so that all content is indexed.
If this is not possible, then you should use rel="prev" and rel="next" tags to show the relationship between each page when linking. Google can explain this better than me here!
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
-
301s Or Stick With Canonical?
Hello all! A nice interesting one for you on this fine Friday... I have some pages which are accessible by 2 different urls - This is for user experience allowing the user to get to these pages in two different ways. To keep Google happy we have a rel canonical so that Google only sees one of these urls to avoid duplicates. After some SEO work I need to change both of these urls (on around 1,000 pages). Is the best way to do this... To 301 every old url to every new url Or... To not worry as I will just point the indexed pages to the new rel canonical? Any ideas or suggestions would be brilliant. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HB170 -
Same Alt tag on the images
Can We have same alt tags on all the images? Below pages have images with same alt tag "astrologer Ravi sharma". I used name of the person on every image. before today, all images were shown in google images but today no image is there. any comment. Like - http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/astrologer-ravi-sharma-photos/ http://www.astrologerravisharma.com/gallery/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexanderWhite0 -
HTTPS in Rel Canonical
Hi, Should I, or do I need to, use HTTPS (note the "S") in my canonical tags? Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Meta Refresh tag on cache pages- GRRR!
Hi guys, All of our product pages originate in a URL with a unique number but it redirects to an SEO url for the user. These product pages have blocks on the page and these blocks are automatically populated with our database of content. Here's an example of the redirect in place: www.example.com/45643/xxxx.html redirects to www.example.com/seo-friendly-url.html The development team did this for 2 reasons. 1) our internal search needs the unique numbered urls for search and 2) it allows quick redirects as pages are cached. The problem I face is this, the redirects from the cached are being tagged with 'meta refresh', yup, they are 302. The development team said they could stop caching and respond dynamically with a 301 but this would bring in a delay. Speed wise, the cached pages load within 22ms and dynamically 530ms, so yeah half a second more. Currently cached pages just do a meta refresh tagged redirect and I want to move away from this. What would you guys recommend in such a situation? I feel like unless I place a 301, I'll be losing out on rank juice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Cross-Domain Canonical Showing as inbound links?
I run several ecommerce websites, and there is some overlap in the products offered between sites. To solve this duplicate content issue, I use a cross-domain rel canonical so that there is only 1 authoritative page per product, even if it is sold on multiple sites. However, I am noticing that my inbound link profile is massively expanding because Google sees these as inbound links. The top linking domains for my site are all owned by me, even though there are not any actual links between the sites. Has anyone else experienced this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevenmusumeche0 -
Removing Canonical Links
We implemented rel=canonical as we decided to paginate our pages. We then ran some testing and on the whole pagination did not work out so we removed all on-page pagination. Now, internally when I click for example a link for Widgets I get the /widgets.php but searching through Google I get to /widgets.php?page=all . There are not redirects in place at the moment. The '?page=all' page has been rated 'A' by the SEOmoz tool under On Page Optimization reports and performs much better than the exact same page without the '?page=all' (the score dips to a 'D' grade) so need to tread carefully so we don't lose the link value. Can anyone advise us on the best way forward? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
Not using a robot command meta tag
Hi SEOmoz peeps. Was doing some research on robot commands and found a couple major sites that are not using them. If you check out the code for these: http://www.amazon.com http://www.zappos.com http://www.zappos.com/product/7787787/color/92100 http://www.altrec.com/ You fill not find a meta robot command line. Of course you need the line for any noindex, nofollow, noarchive pages. However for pages you want crawled and indexed, is there any benefit for not having the line at all? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | STPseo0 -
Google Author Biography Tag-Why Should I Pay Attention To The Author Biography Tag
Hello, I've reading all about Google's Author Biography tag but I am not sure how I can use this in my business. Can anyone explain ( in plain simple English) how I can leverage this tag? Is there any implications in SEO and higher rankings? Just trying to wrap my head around this concept and why it's important...or not. Thanks, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wparlaman0