How come canonicalized pages are showing in the Duplicate Titles report?
-
I am currently removing all duplicate titles from my site via title tag changes, 301's, and in some instances, canonical tags.
I'm confused about why the Moz report spit out pages with duplicate titles that are canonicalized to other pages. Does Google actually consider these pages as having duplicate titles? Or is Roger Mozbot not intuitive enough to to disregard those pages?
-
Just jumping in here even though it's an old question.
The thing is, Moz is crawling the pages and showing duplicate titles, but if you have page B using rel=caonical pointing to page A, then Google will reference page A.
It's ok if page A and page B have the same title if using rel=canonical, because Google will follow that directive most of the time.
So if Moz is surfacing duplicate title tags but they are canonicalizing, it's safe to ignore Moz's flagged issue. Don't always take it at face value.
It would most likely be a waste of time to go change all the page titles for the duplicate pages if you're using rel=canonical.
-
Any time!
-
Got it! Thank you.
-
Pages canonicalized to the same page aren't duplicates, but their titles may still be. Canonicalization only affects the content of the page, not the title; the pages can still be resolved separately in the browser, so their titles may still be duplicates of one another.
If there are pages you don't want to surface in search results, you can noindex, follow those pages to prevent them showing up.
Sorry if my previous answer was a bit confusing! Hope this helps! If you've got more questions, feel free to write in to help@moz.com and we'll do what we can to sort things out for ya!
-
Thanks for your response. So you are saying that the pages that are canonicalized to the same page still are considered duplicates?
Let's say that Page A, Page B, and Page C all have the same title, with Page A being the canonical page. If Page B and Page C are both canonicalized to Page A, does that mean that Page B and C are considered to have duplicate titles while A is okay?
-
Hi there! Tawny from the Help Team here. Sergio's answer is helpful if you're dealing with duplicate content issues, and the links in that answer might help you figure out how to resolve those issues!
Pages are considered to have duplicate titles only if their titles are exact matches. There is no notion of overlapping or partial matches for this purpose. Like duplicate content, canonical versions should be considered, but not pages that refer to the canonical version. Furthermore, two pages with blank titles should not be considered duplicates of one another.
You can verify the page title by viewing the source code of the page itself. I hope this helps! Drop us a line at help@moz.com if you have any other questions or if there's anything that needs clarifying!
-
Hi,
I recently made the same question to moz support, here is my question and the reply:
QUESTION:
I am having a problem with a duplicated content error
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crawl Issues Report - Duplicate Page Content for Bajalibros Argentina (www.bajalibros.com/AR)
Generated at Wed Jul 27 15:22:27 +00:00 2016
URL
https://www.bajalibros.com/AR/Samanta-Schweblin-Autor-426833https://www.bajalibros.com/AR/Catherine-Clement-Autor-184525
THE REPLY
Hi there! I think this has to do with how our tools determine what is duplicate content. Our tool has a 90% tolerance for duplicate content, which means it will flag any content that has 90% of the same code between pages. This includes all the source code on the page and not just the viewable text, so often it's a matter of finding the best answer for the duplicate pages in question.
For instance, often with ecommerce sites, product pages will come up with duplicate content between two colors of the same item, and in that case it's good to use the canonical tag. If there are two versions of the site that exist - for instance, example.com/subfolder andwww.example.com/subfolder - you can put in 301 redirects to the correct page: https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection. If it's just two pages on different subjects but thin content, filling out that content with an extra paragraph or two can help.
There are more in-depth explanations of common answers to duplicate content on this page, if you're curious!: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions or if there's anything that needs clarifying!
Hope this applies to you too
Best
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
-
Avoid Multiple Page Title Elements...
Hi guys i'm just going trough some pages with the seomoz one page optimization tool. As one of the "easy fix" suggestions it says: "Avoid Multiple Page Title Elements" "Explanation: Web pages are meant to have a single title, and for both accessibility and search engine optimization reasons, we strongly recommend following this practice.Recommendation: Remove all but a single page title element." By single element does it mean 1 single word? Is that realistic?
On-Page Optimization | | Immanuel0 -
Does the title tag on the home page affect sub-pages?
Hello. I am thinking of changing our home page title tag to include our two most valuable keywords from two of our sub-pages. Would this help the rankings of those two sub-pages? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
Conflicting Canonical Tag in On-Page Report
I'm going through my site with the "One-Page report card for some PPC landing pages. If I have this canonical tag on my page : I get a Fail in the "Critical Factors Section here: Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical but a Pass in the Optional Factors here: Canonical URL Tag Usage If I take the canonical link out, the opposite happens, what am I missing? Is the format wrong? Thanks Michael
On-Page Optimization | | mjrinvent0 -
Which is better, have our location in the title or have a title that is 66 characters?
I was told by an SEO company that I need to put our name and location in every page title, however, an seomoz.org campaign gave me warnings for having a page title that is too long. Which is better, have our location in the title or have a title that is 66 characters? We have both a physical and online store, so it would still be nice to direct foot traffic to our physical store.
On-Page Optimization | | HockSports0 -
Pages that show in Open Site Explorer that show as 404's in search
When I use Site Explorer to find our Top Pages there are a whole series of pages like this: http://www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk/mybestbets/mybestbets-culture.html which I think were created when we had a Bulletin Board on the site. Although they are showing in the Top Pages results when you visit the page you get the following error message: HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. What implications result from these pages still showing in results and what action should we take without messing up our search rankings? Any advice would be gratefully received.
On-Page Optimization | | NileCruises0 -
Framed Pages and Dynamic Pages
Has anyone else had experience with different CMS's for Ecommerce . Ones that create static pages and others that dynamically create pages. What differences have you seen with rankings on google with the two. Here are two examples of sites using static framed pages and one with a system that dynamically creates pages - http://www.gardeningexpress.co.uk/ - static frames and http://www.floraselect.co.uk - dynamically
On-Page Optimization | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Duplicate Page Content Issue
For one of our campaigns, we have 164 errors for Duplicate Page Content. We have a website where much of the same content lives in two different places on their website. The information needs to be accessible from both areas. What is the best way to tackle this problem? Is there anything that can be done so these pages are not competing against one another? If the only solution is to edit the content on one of the pages, how much of the content has to be different? Is there a certain percentage to go by? Here is an example of what I am referring to: 1.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/services/foot-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains 2.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/patient-resources/service/foot-and-ankle-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains
On-Page Optimization | | cmaseattle1 -
Best Way to check for duplicate pages
With Google's updates we know they want to clean out duplicate content. i have been seeing the same crap spit out even word for word on different sites. Anyway how do you experienced SEO people test for dups on your own site as well as other sites. The only thing i can come up with is paying copyscape 5 cts a test. There has to be other ways. Advise/
On-Page Optimization | | joemas990