Silly question about noindex and canonical
-
Hi,
This is probably going to sound a bit stupid, but I nevertheless want to check.
We have a site that's going to have identical pages (really not my choice) for a sales reason. The two examples would be example.com/profile-name and example.com/location/profile-name
Users using the onsite navigation will always end up in the latter example naturally as they have to select a location before viewing content (plus having the location in the url is nice as there are multiple profiles across different locations that have the same name). However, it's easier to sell our services when we can offer just example.com/profile-name to users for their own marketing reasons.
I'd like to make the example.com/profile-name noindex follow, and have just the example.com/location/profile-name indexed, but not sure if it would be better to implement canonical tags instead? Can anyone see any potential pitfalls of using either method or does it not really make a difference (which is what I suspect, but I'd rather look stupid than get this wrong)?
Thanks!
-
Unfortunately we can't redirect from the shorter to the longer as those we are selling the profile spaces to want to be able to see example.com/profile-name on the browser
-
Thanks for the input guys! Will implement a canonical then.
-
Definitely use canonical. I use it on all my pages for the same problem.
As Gagan said: Using noindex - will make the page out of search engines index...
Hope i helped.
-
Dont make them noindex, rather use canonical tag.
Using noindex - will make the page out of search engines index.But using canonical - It not only gives a strong indication to search Engines that the canonical page is the best page and rest are duplicates, But, it also passes on existing page Authority from duplicate pages to the canonical page
Trust it help !!
-
There are two solutions, one which is canoncialisation pointing to the correct location, the other (which i prefer for this kind of thing) is to implement 301 redirects from the shorter url.
I think that is ideal because you are saying it's easier to tell people to go to that location, thats fine and great, but we want search to hit the real page - so therefore the second / landing page doesn't need to exist ... just redirect it and avoid confusion.
hope that makes sense
-
Hi Philip,
I did a lot of research on a similar issue a few months back. I am certain that Google recommends canonical tag to resolve the issue of duplicate content. That should be the way to go about it.
It's easy to implement and works just perfect.
Hope it helps. !!!
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
-
SEO question
why does a business rank differ on google search and google maps (for example, a hair salon we do seo for ranks 5th for "hair salon in Dublin" on Google Maps and ranks 10th on Google search)
On-Page Optimization | | ryan.mamma0 -
Simple question: I wonder if I'm over internally linking?
Hi, What's you guys' policy on how much to internally link. I do it a lot - whenever it makes sense, but hold off if I just linked to the same page in the last paragraph, for instance. Would like to know your thoughts to see if I'm overdoing it. This is for Ecommerce blog posts, category descriptions, and product descriptions if that matters. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Meta Robots index & noindex Both Implemented on Website
I don't want few of the pages of website to get indexed by Google, thus I have implemented meta robots noindex code on those specific pages. Due to some complications I am not able to remove meta robots index from header of every page Now, on specific pages I have both codes 'index & noindex' implemented. Question is: Will Google crawl/index pages which have noindex code along with index code? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Exa0 -
2 Canonical questions
QUESTION 1
On-Page Optimization | | Marketing_Today
I'm working on a site where a canonical link is implemented as That's not the normal format that I am used to, as I would have written it as Is that a problem? QUESTION 2
Why do so many sites these days have a sitewide canonical tag which refers to itself as the canonical?
For example: http://www.site.co.uk/page has a canonical of0 -
A Hummingbird Question
So with Google SERPs looking for more customer intent and especially to direct questions eg, How much does a x cost? Where can I find x etc - is it good practice to create a bank of Q&A's on site or is it sufficient to have good quality content on the subject matter stating the costs of x and where you can find it written in a customer friendly manner? Will a bank of Q&As add any value if they directly answer the most likely search questions? Thanks Ash
On-Page Optimization | | AshShep10 -
Question about url structure for large real estate website
I've been running a large real estate rental website for the past few years and on May 8, 2013 my Google traffic dropped by about 50%. I'm concerned that my current url structure might be causing thin content pages for certain rental type + location searches. My current directory structure is:
On-Page Optimization | | Amped
domain.com/home-rentals/california/
domain.com/home-rentals/california/beverly-hills/
domain.com/home-rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/
domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/
domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/beverly-hills/
domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/
etc.. I was thinking of changing it to the following:
domain.com/rentals/california/
domain.com/rentals/california/beverly-hills/
domain.com/rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/ ** Note: I'd provide users the ability to filter their results by rental type - by default all types would be displayed. Another question - my listing pages are currently displayed as:
domain.com/123456 And I've been thinking of changing it to:
domain.com/123456-123-Street-City-State-Zip Should I proceed with both changes - one or the one - neither - or something else I'm not thinking of? Thank you in advance!!0 -
E commerce Website canonical and duplicate content isssue
i have a ecomerce site , i am just wondering if any one could help me answer this the more info page can be access will google consider it as duplicate and if it does then how to best use the canonical tag http://domain.com/product-page http://domain.com/product-page/ http://domain.com/product-Page http://domain.com/product-Page/ also in zencart when link product it create duplicate page content how to tackle it? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics0 -
Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Hello, in on page report card , for a kyeword: armadi portafucili blindati URL: http://www.bighunter.net/shop/searchresult.seam?codiceSettoreSel=CACCIA&codiceCategoriaSel=Armadi Blindati&codiceSottoCategoriaSel=Linea Legno DeLuxe&codiceMarcaSel=SILMEC i have a Critical Factor that don't undestand. It 's not ok "appropiate Use of Rel Canoncal, but in my page i have <link href="http://www.bighunter.net/shop/searchresult.seam?codiceSettoreSel=CACCIA&codiceCategoriaSel=Armadi Blindati&codiceSottoCategoriaSel=Linea Legno DeLuxe&codiceMarcaSel=SILMEC" rel="canonical"> and the link is the same of the url . I don't undestand where is the problem . Who can help me? Best Regards Luca
On-Page Optimization | | lbecarelli0