Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Do I need to use canonicals if I will be using 301's?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Do I need to use canonicals if I will be using 301's?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    6
    1039
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Omnipress
      Omnipress last edited by

      I just took a job about three months and one of the first things I wanted to do was restructure the site. The current structure is solution based but I am moving it toward a product focus.

      The problem I'm having is the CMS I'm using isn't the greatest (and yes I've brought this up to my CMS provider). It creates multiple URL's for the same page. For example, these two urls are the same page: (note: these aren't the actual urls, I just made them up for demonstration purposes)

      http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/
      http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/bossman.cmsx

      (I know this is terrible, and once our contract is up we'll be looking at a different provider)

      So clearly I need to set up canonical tags for the last two pages that look like this:

      http://www.omnipress.com/boss-man" />

      With the new site restructure, do I need to put a canonical tag on the second page to tell the search engine that it's the same as the first, since I'll be changing the category it's in?

      For Example:

      http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/

      will become

      http://www.website.com/home/MEET-OUR-TEAM/team-leaders/boss-man

      My overall question is, do I need to spend the time to run through our entire site and do canonical tags AND 301 redirects to the new page, or can I just simply redirect both of them to the new page?

      I hope this makes sense. Your help is greatly appreciated!!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BlueprintMarketing
        BlueprintMarketing last edited by

        no what you need to do is out of the conocal URL reference whatever is going to be shown to the user as the preferable content so if the pages http://www.omnipress.com/boss-woman" />

        and next pages

        ">http://www.omnipress.com/boss-man" />  you will of course need 301 redirect as usual and anyone that tells you rel="canonical is not important does not understand much about SEO and that's not a sly on anyone.

        rel="canonical Tells Google where the original pages are it no matter what helps you immensely who searc it on SEOmoz see what Rand has to say   or we could just look at this link that claims it's the most important advancement in SEO since site maps so please do use a canonical-url-tag http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

        here is exactly how to implement them and I wish you all the best. http://www.metatags.org/rel_canonical

        Sincerely,

        Thomas

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
        • Visiblics
          Visiblics last edited by

          Hi,

          Canonical tag is only required if the search engines are able to access both the pages. There is no need to apply canonical tag as long as the duplicate pages are being redirected to the new/original page.

          As you've specifically mentioned to Google that these page do not exist anymore and I've created a new page for all these pages, and now you want your visitors/search engines to visit the new page which doesn't have any duplicate entry.

          Canonical tag only works if you're running a

          • multilingual website or
          • you're using some query strings for tacking purpose
          • you've multiple copies of the one page and those page can not be deleted.

          If you're sure that after 301 redirect there will not be any duplicate entry for the page, you don't need to apply canonical tag.

          Hope it helps

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KyleChamp
            KyleChamp last edited by

            If your using a 301 redirect, there is no need to use the Rel=canonical tag. However, I would like to point out that the rel=canonical tag is basically made for this type of situation where your CMS is creating multiples of the same page. So adding a rel=canonical tag looks to be exactly what you’re looking for.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • kyleNeedham
              kyleNeedham last edited by

              You only need to use a 301.

              Ps. Your links are going to 404 pages

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
              • SEODinosaur
                SEODinosaur last edited by

                It depends,

                Doing a 301 will transfer the search engine/user from Page A to Page B which is fine. However, if Page B and Page C have a similar URL structure like the first example you gave I would recommend using a canonical tag.

                I would recommend using a canonical tag in any case, to let the search engine spider know which page you want it to crawl. If the content/URL is very similar on two pages or more I would highly recommend it to avoid duplication.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • El-Bracko

                  Will using a reverse proxy give me the benefits of the main sites domain authority?

                  If I am running example.com and have a blog on exampleblog.com Will moving the blog to example.com/blog and using a reverse proxy give the blog the same domain authority as example.com Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | El-Bracko
                  0
                • andyheath

                  Will disallowing URL's in the robots.txt file stop those URL's being indexed by Google

                  I found a lot of duplicate title tags showing in Google Webmaster Tools. When I visited the URL's that these duplicates belonged to, I found that they were just images from a gallery that we didn't particularly want Google to index. There is no benefit to the end user in these image pages being indexed in Google. Our developer has told us that these urls are created by a module and are not "real" pages in the CMS. They would like to add the following to our robots.txt file Disallow: /catalog/product/gallery/ QUESTION: If the these pages are already indexed by Google, will this adjustment to the robots.txt file help to remove the pages from the index? We don't want these pages to be found.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath
                  0
                • _nitman

                  What's the best possible URL structure for a local search engine?

                  Hi Mozzers, I'm working at AskMe.com which is a local search engine in India i.e if you're standing somewhere & looking for the pizza joints nearby, we pick your current location and share the list of pizza outlets nearby along with ratings, reviews etc. about these outlets. Right now, our URL structure looks like www.askme.com/delhi/pizza-outlets for the city specific category pages (here, "Delhi" is the city name and "Pizza Outlets" is the category) and www.askme.com/delhi/pizza-outlets/in/saket for a category page in a particular area (here "Saket") in a city. The URL looks a little different if you're searching for something which is not a category (or not mapped to a category, in which case we 301 redirect you to the category page), it looks like www.askme.com/delhi/search/pizza-huts/in/saket if you're searching for pizza huts in Saket, Delhi as "pizza huts" is neither a category nor its mapped to any category. We're also dealing in ads & deals along with our very own e-commerce brand AskMeBazaar.com to make the better user experience and one stop shop for our customers. Now, we're working on URL restructure project and my question to you all SEO rockstars is, what can be the best possible URL structure we can have? Assume, we have kick-ass developers who can manage any given URL structure at backend.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | _nitman
                  0
                • BrandExpSteve

                  Is their value in linking to PPC landing pages and using rel="canonical"

                  I have ppc landing pages that are similar to my seo page. The pages are shorter with less text with a focus on converting visitors further along in the purchase cycle. My questions are: 1. Is there a benefit for having the orphan ppc pages indexed or should I no index them? 2. If indexing does provide benefits, should I create links from my site to the ppc pages or should I just submit them in a sitemap? 3. If indexed, should I use rel="canonical" and point the ppc versions to the appropriate organic page? Thanks,

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandExpSteve
                  0
                • Gauge123

                  Should you allow an auto dealer's inventory to be indexed?

                  Due to the way most auto dealership website populate inventory pages, should you allow inventory to be indexed at all? The main benefit us more content. The problem is it creates duplicate, or near duplicate content. It also creates a ton of crawl errors since the turnover is so short and fast. I would love some help on this. Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gauge123
                  0
                • BeTheBoss

                  Removing Dynamic "noindex" URL's from Index

                  6 months ago my clients site was overhauled and the user generated searches had an index tag on them. I switched that to noindex but didn't get it fast enough to avoid being 100's of pages indexed in Google. It's been months since switching to the noindex tag and the pages are still indexed. What would you recommend? Google crawls my site daily - but never the pages that I want removed from the index. I am trying to avoid submitting hundreds of these dynamic URL's to the removal tool in webmaster tools. Suggestions?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeTheBoss
                  0
                • BeytzNet

                  Should I use both Google and Bing's Webmaster Tools at the same time?

                  Hi All, Up till now I've been registered only to Google WMT. Do you recommend using at the same time Bing's WMT? Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
                  0
                • MTalhaImtiaz

                  How to check a website's architecture?

                  Hello everyone, I am an SEO analyst - a good one - but I am weak in technical aspects. I do not know any programming and only a little HTML. I know this is a major weakness for an SEO so my first request to you all is to guide me how to learn HTML and some basic PHP programming. Secondly... about the topic of this particular question - I know that a website should have a flat architecture... but I do not know how to find out if a website's architecture is flat or not, good or bad. Please help me out on this... I would be obliged. Eagerly awaiting your responses, BEst Regards, Talha

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.