Should I use canonicals? Best practice?
-
Hi there,
I've been working on a pretty dated site. The product pages have tabs that separate the product information, e.g., a tab for specifications, a tab for system essentials, an overview tab that is actually just a copy of the product page. Each tab is actually a link to a completely separate page, so product/main-page is split into product/main-page/specs, product/main-page/resources, etc.
Wondering if canonicals would be appropriate in this situation? The information isn't necessarily duplicate (except for the overview tabs) but with each tab as a separate page, I would imagine that's diluting the value of the main page? The information all belongs to the main page, shouldn't it be saying "I'm a version of the main page"?
-
Hi Sorina,
Thanks for the response. That makes sense as the content isn't completely duplicate.
-
Rel canonical is used to avoid duplicate content issues, on pages that display the same content under different URLs.
In your case the use of rel canonical is not appropriate.
Best practice, if you want all content to be assigned to the main URL, is to actually put all content on this page. You should get rid of these product/main-page/specs, product/main-page/resources, etc pages and post all the content on product/main-page using divs.
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
-
Question on URL wording and structure best practices
We're mapping out some URL structures and trying to figure out what would be best for separating folders for articles and videos regarding wording in the folder say: www.site.com/category/article/name-of-article/id#/ ---- www.site.com/category/video/name-of-video/id#/ vs. www.site.com/category/a/name-of-article/id#/ ---- www.site.com/category/v/name-of-video/id#/ Second option came about the ''shorter is better' way of thinking. Downside I see to it is if the link would be copied and pasted somewhere probably would be best for a user to make it clear they are clicking into an article or a video, don't think just an 'a' or a 'v' would be very telling in that scenario. Would it be better for search engines to make it clearer with the whole word in there? Any other pros and cons to each? Not sure what's the best route here.
Technical SEO | | SBRMarketing0 -
Correct Implementation Of Canonical Tags
Hopefully this is an easy one to answer. When canonical tags are added to web pages should there be a canonical tag on a page that canonicalizes(?) (new word!?) back to itself. i.e. four page all point back to page Z. On page Z there is a canonical tag that points to page Z? My feeling without any technical know how is that this is just creating an infinite loop i.e. go to this page for original content, (repeat) Or this could be completely correct! Don't want to go back to the developer and point out the error if I'm wrong!
Technical SEO | | ZaddleMarketing0 -
Canonical Tag - Magento - Help
Hello, I was hoping to get some help or tips on how to best control the canonical tag on a Magento based website. When you go into the Magento admin and enable the option to use the canonical tag on pages, all that does is input the canonical tag to the exact page just with the http:// in the url. My goal is to use the canonical tag on specific pages and point it to other pages, not just the same page with an http:// For example, right now for page: example.com/question/baseball the canonical tag is pointing to http://example.com/question/baseball What i want is to be able to do is take: example.com/question/baseball and have the canonical tag point to example.com/question/baseballbats Is this possible? Does what I'm saying make sense? Please let me know what you all think.... Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Best practices for repetitive job postings
I have a client who is a recruiter for skilled trades jobs. They post quite a few jobs on their job board on a regular basis. They frequently have job postings that are very similar to older jobs or multiple current job postings that are similar to each other. Looking at their webmaster tools and site: command search in google, it does appear they have some duplicate content issues. We're thinking it's because of the similar job posts. What is the best practice for dealing with this? And is there any way to correct the situation so that the number of "omitted due to similarity" results declines? Thanks for you help!
Technical SEO | | PlusROI0 -
Determine the best URL structure
Hi guys, I'm working my way through a URL restructure at the moment and I've several ideas about the best way to do it. However, it would be good to get some views on this. At the moment I'm working on a property website - http://bit.ly/N7eew7 As you can quickly see, the URL structure of the site needs a lot of work. Similar websites - http://bit.ly/WXH5WG http://bit.ly/Q3UiLC One of the sites has http://www.domain.ie/property-to-let/location/ And the other has http://www.domain.ie/rentals/location/property-to-let/ I could do with some guidance about the best steps to take with this. I've a few ideas myself but this is a massive project. Cheers, Mark
Technical SEO | | MarkScully0 -
Do I have a canonical problem?
Does this site www.davidclick.com have a canonical problem because the home page can be requested via 3 different urls http://www.davidclick.com/
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://davidclick.com/
http://www.davidclick.com/index.htm but I'm confused in terms of applying a fix for example all advice here http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139066#1 says i need to identify the duplicate files and add So my question is please if I do have a canonical problem how can i fix it when I only have one file for my home page, there are no duplicates 😞 Any insights welcome 🙂0 -
Multi- language URL best practices
we have two different content perlanguage (Fr. EN )) they are not Duplicated and they are completly different. what is better for the URL a language sub domain or a folder fr.mycompany.com or mycompany.com/fr/
Technical SEO | | omarfk0 -
Can I use canonical tags to merge property map pages and availability pages to their counterpart overview pages?
I have a property website, for each property are 4-5 tabs each with their own URL, these pages include the overview page which is content rich, and auxilliary pages such as maps, availability, can I use a canonical tag to merge the tabs with very little content to their corresponding overview page which is content rich? I.e. www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/overview This page has tabs for map, town info, availability which all have their own url i.e. www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/map
Technical SEO | | assertive-media
www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/availability
www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/towninfo Because these auxilary pages do not contain much content can I place a canonical tag in them pointing back to the content rich overview page at www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/overview?0