Which pages should use rel="canonical" links?
-
I have many pages showing up as multiple content. Most of the them belong to product pages for my store, login pages that show up everywhere on the site, etc. I know that I need to use the rel=canonical link in the header but after searching the forum I'm still unsure of what pages need it. Is it the pages that I don't want searched/crawled by Google or the other way around?
Thanks!
Crystal
-
Google will still crawl canonical pages. How soon the index will reflect that will depend on how fast that crawl happens. I'm not sure there's anything you can do to speed that up.
-
Yes, you're right -- they are notices, not warnings. Thanks for the response.
Do you have an answer for my #2 question?
-
You shouldn't be getting warnings. They appear as notices in my campaign and they're there to let you know that the spider found them. The reason you need to know is that canonical has a downside: crawl budget.
Bots still have to crawl your canonical pages. If you add content on a frequent basis, this could impact how quickly that content gets indexed. It's always better to have fewer pages but, when you can't avoid it, there's canonical. That's why SEOMOZ tracks it for you.
-
Follow-up questions:
[1] My site development tool (XSP) has recently added the canonical reference as an auto-generated line of code, every page of my site now has it. Why is SEOmoz warning me that I have hundreds of pages of canonicals if it's supposed to be a GOOD thing?
[2] Google is still seeing the pages without the canonical tag because that's how they were indexed. Will they eventually get purged from their index, or should I be proactive about that, and if so, how?
Thanks for any input.
-
Perfect, thank you! This will be my homework for the evening.
Crystal
-
If you have duplicate content, Google only wants to keep one in their index. It used to be that Google would just pick one but, with canonical, you can pick. Pick what page you want indexed and then put a canonical with the URL of the page you want to keep on the other pages. Google will then keep the page you wanted and ignore the rest.
A visual guide 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
-
Can Javascript Links Be Used to Reduce Links per Page?
We are trying to reduce the number of links per page, so for the low-value footer links we are considering coding them as javascript links. We realize Google can read java, but the goal is to reduce level of importance assigned to those internal links. Would this be a valid approach? So the question is would converting low-value footer links to js like below help reduce the number of links per page in google's eyes even though we're reasonably sure they can read javascript. <a <span="" class="html-tag">href</a><a <span="" class="html-tag">="</a><a class="html-attribute-value html-external-link" target="_blank">javascript:void(0);</a>" data-footer-link="/about/about">About Us
On-Page Optimization | | Jay-T0 -
Outbound links. External Links.
I have been reading alot on SEO and there is something confusing about having "Outbound links. External Links." on your main ranking page. Some say that We shouldn't have any out bound links. (from Random website) According to Yoast, we should have outbound links. (yoast.com) we should have outbound links but we should add the "no-follow" tag. (from Random website) Q: What should i do and follow?
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
If the answer is yes, how many outbound links is an appropriate amount per page?0 -
Ranking for "synonym" terms on separate pages?
(My title says "synonym" but it's not exactly the most accurate word, but works best for the title_) I have a site that ranks #1 for a term, and let’s pretend it’s “cheap phone”. It’s also ranks #1 for “cheap phone service” and #3 for “cheap phone plans”. These are all the home page with those rankings I have a sub page whose natural title would be “Cheap Phone Plans” or “Cheap Phone Service”. I have it named something these and it is not optimized for either of these terms because I think it would be best to not mess with the good rankings I have already for those two terms So here’s my question: what would likely be the outcome if I optimized that subpage for “Cheap Phone Plans” or “Cheap Phone Service”? If Google began to direct searchers of this term to my subpage rather than my home page, would my home page lose some of it’s ranking with it’s main and most popular keyword, “cheap phone? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
[HTML Gurus] Is the only nofollow = rel="nofollow"?
From my knowledge only way an HTML link is nofollow is using rel="nofollow". I was wondering if you have a link , is there anything you can put OTHER than rel="nofollow" within the <a></a>tags that make a link nofollow?
On-Page Optimization | | William.Lau0 -
Should I have content on my home page or links to my articles
Hi, i have asked this question a couple of times without any luck so i am hoping third time lucky. My site www.in2town.co.uk has dropped in the rankings for two of my important keywords, lifestyle magazine and lifestyle news, so i am just wondering if i have to much content on the page for google to understand what the page is about. i am thinking to just have the links on my page instead of the intro to the articles, for example another online magazine does this, http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/ Can anyone please let me know if i should keep the intro to the articles or if i should go with the links idea like femalefirst does to help google understand that we are a lifestyle magazine any advice would be great
On-Page Optimization | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Too many links on home page
SEOmoz crawl states I have 3 pages with too many links. My sites are hosted on Yahoo small business. One page they state is too long is the home page/ind. with 600 links to each page on the web site ( I think). Is this really a problem and how do I fix it? The other two pages are product categories that link to the products under the main product type. What I do not understand is that we have many larger product categories that SEOmoz crawl is not stating too many.
On-Page Optimization | | Wales0 -
Seo Moz says there are 124 links on this page - do you see it?
I'm look at the report under Crawl Diagnostics Summary/Too Many On-Page Links It says there are 124 links on this page. I don't see it?! do you? http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/category/garden-wedding-ideas/
On-Page Optimization | | annasusmiles0 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia680
