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.
Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical
-
Hello,
We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago).
So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present.
Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Tej Luchmun
-
Has this ever been done? Would be very handy.
-
Hi Sean,
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Indeed having the rel=canonical pointing to the wrong page would be another issue. What David Lee suggested me is using the rel=canonical on both the original post and the duplicate post. This can be set programmatically instead of the ignore button.
But surely, the ignore button would be much more easier, in some situations. Please keep us update once this ignore feature has been implement.
Thanks again for your help.
Tej Luchmun
-
Hi Sheena,
Yes, Moz Crawl Diagnostics Report is showing duplicate title tag for the content that already have a rel=canonical tag.
I contacted them, and they suggested that i should include the canonical tag on the duplicate and original post, where both tags are pointing to the original post.
I have not yet tested it out, but hopefully, this should solve the issue.
Thanks again for your help.
Tej Luchmun
-
Thanks a lot Karl, indeed with the canonical tag, neither the title nor the content becomes a duplicate.
It's just the MOZ crawl issue that raised the alarm.
Thanks again.
Tej Luchmun
-
Hi Tej,
Thanks for writing us on this! So Sheena and Karl are both correct. Although, an REL Canonical may solve the issue with Google it is still technically a duplicate title tag. When designing the tool we found that having the crawler pick up the REL Canonicals can be problematic for a coding and SEO standpoint. It is often possible that an REL Canonical will be directed to an incorrect page and since our crawler is so literal it would have issues recognizing the canonical was bad.
Our product staff is aware of this and they hope to get to a place where we provide an ignore feature, so if you feel that the tag was implemented correctly you can select ignore and we will no longer report that issue for that page.
I know that this is not ideal for many customers, but hopefully our solution will be comprehensive enough to encapsulate many of the solutions SEO's have found for these issues.
Hopefully this helps and if you have any other questions or concerns let me know.
Have a great day!
-
Do you mean that your Moz Analytics Crawl Diagnostics Report is showing duplicate titles for pages that have rel=canonical? If so, this is something I noticed a few months ago & brought up to the Moz team. I believe it's something they're working to implement/somehow allow us to 'check off' pages in the report that we've already implemented a solution for. Also, if this is your situation, I think you should add your experience / request to Moz's feature request forum.
I hope this helps!
Founder & CEO at Schleicher Marketing
Technical SEO, eCommerce, CRO/UX Design, Migrations, Shopify+, Digital Strategy
Entrepreneur In Residence at StartupSD.org -
Technically it is still a duplicate title tag, you just won't be getting penalised for it that's all.
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
-
Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded in Google webmaster tools.
In Google Webmaster Tools, I have a coverage issue. I am getting this error message: Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded. It gives the below blog post page as an example. Any idea how to resolve? At one time, I was using handl utm grabber, but the plugin is deactivated on my website. https://www.savacations.com/turrialba-costa-ricas-garden-city/?utm_source=deleted&utm_medium=deleted&utm_term=deleted&utm_content=deleted&utm_campaign=deleted&gclid=deleted5.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alancito0 -
Are rel=author and rel=publisher meta tags currently in use?
Hello, Do these meta tags have any current usage? <meta name="author" content="Author Name"><meta name="publisher" content="Publisher Name"> I have also seen this usage linking to a companies Google+ Page:Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | srbello0 -
How (or if) to apply re canonical tags to Shopify?
Anyone familiar with Shopify will understand the problems of their directory structure. Every time you add a product to a 'collection' it essentially creates a duplicate. For example... https://www.domain.com/products/product-slim-regular-bikini may also appear as: https://www.domain.com/collections/all/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/bikinis/products/product-slim-regular-bikini etc, etc It's not uncommon to have up to six duplicates of each product. So my question is twofold: Firstly, should I worry about this from an SEO point of view? I understand the desire to minimise potential duplicate content issues and also in focussing the 'juice' on just one page per product. But I also planned on trying to build the authority of the collection pages. If I request Google not to index the product pages which link off the collections, does this not devalue these collections pages? Secondly, I understand the correct way to fix these is using 'rel canonical' tags, but I'm not clear about HOW to actually do this. Shopify support has not been very helpful. They have provided two different instructions, so just added to the confusion (see below). Shopify instruction #1: Add the following to the theme.liquid file... <title><br />{{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz
{% if page_description %} {% endif %} Shopify instruction #2: Add the following to each individual product page... So, can anyone help clarify: The best strategic approach to this inherent SEO issue with Shopify (besides moving to another platform!)? and If 'rel canonical' tags is the way to go, exactly where and how to apply them? Regards, Murray1 -
Proper Title Tags for ecommerce
In terms of E-commerce title tags. We are a manufacturer of our own clothing products. We are new to the SEO landscape so if this question is an obvious answer, then i apologize for wasting any one times in advance. We Manufacture our own clothing. Each item has a name. The names are American womens names such as amanda or lori or jenniffer etc. When we create the title tag for them should we include the name of the item itself at the beginning or end. For example should it be Item Name - Keyword - Keyword - Brand Name(aka manufacturer) or Keyword - Keyword - Item Name - Brand Name (aka manufacturer) The reason we ask this is because we think it would be a waste to rank for actual American names such as Jennifer and Jessica. All that we have read on Moz suggests that it seems to be better to have pertinent keywords in the beginning of the title as opposed to the end. In terms of our brand name we already rank number 1 for every combination of our brand. So we would like to start picking up traffic for the different product types we sell and there respective synonyms. Not sure if i am making any sense. Sorry in advance, and any help is very very much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Imagination0 -
Best Practices for Homepage Title Tag
Hi, I would like to know if there is any update about the best practices for the homepage title tag. I mean, a couple of years ago, it was still working placing main keywords in the homepage title tag. But since the last google SERP update, the number of characters that are being shown were reduced, and now we try to work with 55 and 56 characters. That has reduced our capacity of including many keywords on the title tag. Besides, search engines are smarter now to choose the correct inner page to show in SERP. But I am wondering if the Homepage Title should have a branded orientation or should include main keywords, cause it is still working that strategy. I would appreciatte any update in this issue. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Canonical tag - but Title and Description are slightly different
I am building a new SEO site with a "Silo" / Themed architecture. I have a travel website selling hotel reservations. I list a hotel page under a city page - example, www.abc.com/Dallas/Hilton.html Then I use that same property under a segment within the city - example www.abc.com/Dallas/Downtown/Hilton.html, so there are two URLs with the same content Both pages are identical, except I want to customize the Title and Description. I want to customize the title and description to build a consistent theme - for example the /Downtown/Hilton page will have the words "Near Downtown" in the Title and Description, while the primary city Hilton page will not. So I have two questions about this. First, is it okay to use a canonical tag if the Title and Description are slightly different? Everything else is identical. If so, will Google crawl and comprehend the unique Title and Description on the "Downtown" silo? I want Google to see that I have several "supporting" pages to my main landing page(s). I want to present to Google 5 supporting pages in each silo that each has a supporting keyword theme. But I'm not sure if Google will consider content of pages that point to a different page using the canonical tag. Please see this supporting example: http://d.pr/i/aQPv Thanks for your insights. Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf0 -
Are pages with a canonical tag indexed?
Hello here, here are my questions for you related to the canonical tag: 1. If I put online a new webpage with a canonical tag pointing to a different page, will this new page be indexed by Google and will I be able to find it in the index? 2. If instead I apply the canonical tag to a page already in the index, will this page be removed from the index? Thank you in advance for any insights! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
How to Remove Joomla Canonical and Duplicate Page Content
I've attempted to follow advice from the Q&A section. Currently on the site www.cherrycreekspine.com, I've edited the .htaccess file to help with 301s - all pages redirect to www.cherrycreekspine.com. Secondly, I'd added the canonical statement in the header of the web pages. I have cut the Duplicate Page Content in half ... now I have a remaining 40 pages to fix up. This is my practice site to try and understand what SEOmoz can do for me. I've looked at some of your videos on Youtube ... I feel like I'm scrambling around to the Q&A and the internet to understand this product. I'm reading the beginners guide.... any other resources would be helpful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deskstudio0
