Attribution of port number to canonical links...ok?
-
Hi all
A query has recently been raised internally with regard to the use of canonical links. Due to CMS limitations with a client who's CMS is managed by a third party agency, canonical links are currently output with the port number attributed, e.g.
...as opposed to the correct absolute URL:
Note port number are not attributed to the actual page URLs. We have been advised that this canonical link functionality cannot be amended at present. My personal interpretation of canonical link requirements is that such a link should exactly match the absolute URL of the intended destination page, my query is does this extend to the attribution of port number to URLs. Is the likely impact of the inclusion of such potentially incorrect URLs likely to be the same as purely incorrect canonical links.
Thanks
-
I can't imagine why any CMS would be designed that way or, why, from a coding standpoint, it would be hard to remove. I try not to second-guess third-party providers (because I've been in their shoes), but that sounds like borderline BS to me. "Can't fix it" is far too often "Don't want to fix it".
My gut feeling is that Google will ignore a standard port 80, and will only index the port if it's non-default or if the entire site (including internal links) is explicitly using the port. By adding that canonical, though, you're definitely sending a mixed signal, and there is risk. I've never seen this actual situation in play, so I can only speculate.
Is it possible to remove the canonical tags on these pages and using 301-redirects or some other approach? Unfortunately, a lot of this depends on how the pages actually resolve and what other signals are in play. It's a bit tough to tell without looking at the specific site.
-
My guess is that the port number version of the URL is what will start appearing in SERPs.
https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:%22:8080%22
I would remove the canonical tag if possible.
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
-
Links Questions and advice?
I have a website which has a fair few link assets that are doing very well (a lot of really powerful sites have link to them with follow links) but my commercial pages are not doing as well as a lot of sites without any other investment than (mediocre) links direct to there commercial pages with at least 10% of them carrying the money anchor text. Even pages we have had a few links for with generalized real anchor text and reasonable links do not do as well as the above due to none of them carrying the money keyword? Is it me or does google still rely on links to the commercial page and keywords with anchor text to match the money term?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Pagination Tag and Canonical
Once and for all - I would really like to get a few opinions regarding what is the best method working for you. For most of the all timers in here there's no need to introduce the pagination tag. The big question for me is regarding the canonical tag in those case. There are 2 options, as far as I consider: Options 1 will be implementing canonical tag directing to the main category page: For instance: example.com/shoes example.com/shoes?page=2 example.com/shoes?page=3 In this case all the three URL's will direct to the main category which is example.com/shoes Option 2 - using self-referral canonical for every page. In this case - example.com/shoes?page=2 will direct its canonical tag to example.com/shoes?page=2 and so on. What's the logic behind this? To make sure there are no floating pages onsite. If I'll use canonical that directs to the main category (option 1) then these pages won't get indexed and techniclly there won't be any indexed links to these pages. Your opinion?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoperad0 -
Are footer links important?
We currently display a list of links in the footer of our site to help boost SEO. They were put in place years ago and in a recent discuss with our UX team they requested we remove them from the site. Do footer links have any value? Or is this an old dated practice that no longer works? If we remove the footer links should we expect to see if have an impact on our SEO traffic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mivito0 -
Link Building
I have to develop a strategy for link building. The SEO guy I have been speaking with has started putting links on .edu sites etc . To me - this "stinks" of manipulating the search engines - which I know we will get stung by at some point. I hope this isn't standard practice - but I don't know what the best way to improve rankings in terms of links etc. We sell health products and are starting to put out 3-4 high quality articles per week. Ideas? Kind Regards Martin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear1 -
Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?
Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this. When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost? We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name). Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Bad links
Well just set up SEO Moz to find out someone thought it funny to build a load of links to our site http://bluetea.com.au/ with the anchor txt "Buy Cocks" .... PLEASE PLEASE let me know how much I should worry about this and how can I get rid of it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Intrested0 -
Do nofollow links affect link profile?
I've read that it's good to keep a natural link profile. Some naked links, some links going to our company name, some with anchor text, etc. Do nofollow links affect this link profile, or is it only followed links that are taken into account?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lighttable0 -
What is your onsite linking strategy?
So there are a few different routes to take when you're SEOing your site. My quest is to determine which is the best way to approach this. Let's use a real life example of a product. It's project management software, online collaboration software, employee scheduling tool, business process streamlining tool, client management tool and task/to do manager. It works for virtually any industry. I've created my keyword document and it's HUGE. I've created my wireframe with related keyphrases in buckets. Each one of the example keyphrases listed above have slight variations then a whole list of long tails. I have a few options as I see it: Create site sections within the main site that focus on each (This can make the site look slightly sloppy and categories would have to be masked so it doesn't appear spammy) Create a page in the blog relevant to each keyphrase and link all subsequent blog posts within that keyphrase family directly to that blog post (This seems like my best option) and have cta's or conversion mechanisms on this page Link all keyphrases to the home page (Seems like a terrible idea) Not sure if I answered my own question here, but I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks. What are your thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cmdsonline0