Appropriate Use of Canonical Tag
-
Hello,
I am creating study guides for books with tabbed elements for each study guide.
For example, for Othello, I'd have 3 tabs like so:
1. Overview page = xyz.com/othello
2. Context = xyz.com/othello/context
3. Characters = xyz.com/othello/characters
I noticed that YouTube channels have tabbed elements and use the canonical. For example, all of the tabbed sections on https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist/channels have this canonical http://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist">
In my case, would it be a correct use of the canonical tag to include rel="canonical" href = http://xyz.com/othello on each of the tabbed pages?
Also, where exactly in the header should the canonical be placed? Before or after open graph / twitter cards?
-
Hi Jason,
I would definitely not canonicalise between the three+ URLs about one text unless those URLs contain identical information. Since they won't be identical (one will be plot, one characters, etc. as you say earlier in the thread), I would not canonicalise. You will result in content such as that on characters not being indexed or crawled. The site is therefore probably less likely to rank for queries like [othello characters] if the characters page has a canonical tag on it, pointing to the plot summary page.
Without having seen the site or mock-ups, I believe you would be safe to use separate URLs for each area of study surrounding one topic.
However, you could indeed put all this content on one page and use tabs to switch between the content, given that it is too long to fit nicely on one page. The tabs should be operated by CSS, and all the text (plot summary, characters, context) would be in the source code upon page load. People would click between tabs to read it. This is not considered cloaking or hiding content, although I would avoid doing this if the content for each section is particularly lengthy. I doubt it would get you in trouble, but if you are creating substantial content for each area of study, this would work well on separate URLs _without _canonicalising to one particular page, as per your original structure.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I'd recommend using pagination over canonicals.
Refer to this post to learn how to implement them.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
Again, if the content is all on one page, partitioned into separate tabs, then there's no need for canonicals or anything else for that matter. You can configure your tabs so the overview is the default tab, the one that displays on entry to the page.
If the page becomes too lengthy or takes to long to load, then another option is to split it onto separate URLs and use page (rel=next and rel=prev) tags to relate them.
-
There is way too much content to fit onto one page - that is why I am using the tabular format. The question is should the content in all tabs be on the same URL or different URLs? And if different URLs should I use the canonical?
-
In my opinion, the content would ideally be located on the same page.
You have to balance that with the length of the content and the ability of the page to load quickly. Assuming you can get it all on one page, then you don't need canonical tags.
-
So I am laying the content out in tabular format. This actually leads to another question - should each tab be a separate URL or all on the same URL? Perhaps by keeping everything on the same URL this would also solve my canonical issue?
-
So the issue is that the content within each tab is definitely not duplicate but related. Ie one tab might be the plot summary while another tab consists of character descriptions. Ideally, I think the best user experience would be for all users to start on the overview though. So given that the content in each tab is NOT duplicate but it would be a better user experience to start at the overview, should I use canonical or is it safer to just leave it out?
-
I think I'm not understanding something. Why do you want to partition the content onto three pages? Why not just lay out the content so it displays in a tabular format? That way you don't have to worry about canonicalizing or paginating the content at all.
if you are concerned about page load tomes, then if would consider pagination instead. This post is an excellent resource for how (and when) to do that.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
The example you stated would prevent context and character tabs from being indexed in search engines. If these are unique content, you should reconsider because canonical was originally created for multiple urls with identical information. Place the tag anywhere in the header.
-
If those pages are essentially duplicate content, then you should use a canonical. If you Google to index each of those pages separately, and return each one in search results, then you should not use one. Do you want people who search for text that matches your context and character tabs closely to be linked directly into those tabs, or should they always start at the overview page? If they should always start at the overview, you can try the canonical tags. Be aware that if the page contents aren't very similar, Google may ignore these.
Anywhere in the is fine, it doesn't matter where you place it.
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
-
Http to https Canonical Question
Hello Fellow Moz Friends I have recently went from http to https for the website. Do I keep my canonicals at http or make all https? Will this affect ranking signals? Anything I should be looking out for? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carwrapsolutions0 -
Duplicate pages and Canonicals
Hi all, Our website has more than 30 pages which are duplicates. So canonicals have been deployed to show up only 10 of these pages. Do more of these pages impact rankings? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
How and When Should I use Canonical Url Tags?
Pretty new to the SEO universe. But I have not used any canonical tags, just because there is not definitive source explaining exactly when and why you should use them??? Am I the only one who feels this way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | greenrushdaily0 -
Google ignoring Canonical and choosing its own
Hey Mozzers, We have several products that all have upto 6 different versions, they are the same product but in a different specification. As users search via these specifications (within our website) it is beneficial to keep all 6 products as different listings on the website. In google however it is not. So we kept all 6 listing but chose 1 to be the google landing page, the only different between them all is the technical specification + occasionally size. But 95% of the pages are the same. Let call the products A, B, C, D, E, F, we made all the canonicals point to C because this is out best selling version of the product. However, google has chosen E to rank instead. What is my best move here? Should i accept the page google has chosen and change the canonicals the point to that version or should I be stubborn and try to get google to change which version it ranks. As always many thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP0 -
Cross Domain Rel Canonical tags vs. Rel Canonical Tags for internal webpages
Today I noticed that one of my colleagues was pointing rel canonical tags to a third party domain on a few specific pages on a client's website. This was a standard rel canonical tag that was written Up to this point I haven't seen too many webmasters point a rel canonical to a third party domain. However after doing some reading in the Google Webmaster Tools blog I realized that cross domain rel canonicals are indeed a viable strategy to avoid duplicate content. My question is this; should rel canonical tags be written the same way when dealing with internal duplicate content vs. external duplicate content? Would a rel=author tag be more appropriate when addressing 3rd party website duplicate content issues? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Wordpress Tag Pages - NoIndex?
Hi there. I am using Yoast Wordpress Plugin. I just wonder if any test have been done around the effects of Index vs Noindex for Tag Pages? ( like when tagging a word relevant to an article ) Thanks 🙂 Martin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country?
A customer of ours has a website in Belgium. There two main languages in Belgium: Dutch and French.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox
At first there was only a Dutch version with a .be extension. Right now they are implementing the French Belgium version on the URL website.be/fr. All of the content and comments will be translated. Also the URL’s will change from Dutch to French, so you've got two URL’s with the same content but in another language. Question: Should you use a canonical tag on translated content in a multi-language country? I think Google will understand this is just for the usability for a Multilanguage country. What do you guys think???0 -
Tags, categories or both?
There is so much debate regarding duplicate content, horror stories, losing visitors, being penalized, yada yada... that I am wandering if it's wise to use tags/categories on a WordPress blog. I saw that all major blogs are using these structuring etiquettes and they are all dofollow and meta robots on index, follow. What do you say? It is wise to use tags, categories or both? Should I nofollow them, noindex or follow and index? Or noindex follow? Cheers and thx.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasmin280