Rel-canonical and meta data

[Bendall]

Hey Mozzers,

Help please. I am migrating content for a new website (1000's of pages) and am using the canonical tag on a number of pages.

For the pages which I am asking Google not to recognise / index as the master version, and in the interests of time do I need to take the time to fill in the meta <title><description> etc each time?</p> <p>Ben</p></title>

[Andy.Drinkwater]

No problem at all Ben. Good luck with the work - been there many times

-Andy

[Bendall]

Thanks for the response and I think I knew your suggestion to be best SEO practice, but am guess looking to save time.

Thank you, decision made

[Andy.Drinkwater]

In the interest of best practice, this is still something I would do. Remember that a rel=canonical is only a suggestion to Google. Even though they say they will do their best to follow the recommendation, this isn't a guarantee like a 301.

I would pay attention to the page title as well because even if someone doesn't arrive at a page via Google, presumably they can browse to it? If they do, they will want to look at the browser tab and see something in there.

It isn't a question I have been asked before, so never tested it - gut feeling is telling me to do the work I'm afraid.

-Andy