Please take a look at my canonical tag - is it written right?
-
Hi there! I just changed the preferred domain settings from http://example.com to http://www.example.com and received a recommended action from Google: "Ensure that you specify the new host as canonical in all page links or sitemaps."
Could you please let me know if "the new host" is equal to "canonical" and if I have to include this tag into every page of my website ?
Thank you!
-
Thank you!
-
Unfortunately I'm not much of a coder, so I won't be able to guide you on the htaccess code piece. Regarding the Search Console items though, the tool treats every site that is setup as its own entity, which is why you need a country and XML for each. An example of why they do this because you might have different profiles for http://www.example.com/us and http://www.example.com/ca where the subfolder specifies the country. If they recycled the same info from each profile setup, the /ca site would be set to U.S. instead of Canada.
-
Thank you, Sean!
-
Logan,
Thank you very much for your advise! I figured out that it is going to be much of work going from page to page and set their canonicals:) Maybe updating my .htaccess will work out? I am wondering if that (please see below) would be the right thing to put in there?
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^example.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [r=301,nc]Also, when I added the property (http://www.example.com) yesterday and set it as preferred domain, I was suggested to change the target country and submit a sitemap file for both http://example.com and http://www.example.com. I don't quite understand why do they want me to do that if the country and the sitemap are obviously the same?
-
Kirupa,
The syntax of your canonical tag is correct. However, there are a couple things you should know before you continue:
1- When Google says "Ensure that you specify the new host as canonical in all page links or sitemaps." it means they want to to update internal links and your XML sitemaps, so it's more involved than simply updating your canonical tag. Basically anywhere your URLs are referenced should be updated to reflect your new www-canonical URL structure.
2- You may have provided that one tag as an example, but DO NOT put that exact tag on every page of your site. Doing so would point search engines to the homepage of your site from any page they visit. Canonical tags are basically soft redirects that search engines follow, so when a bot sees a canonical tag on one page that points to another page, they leave and go to where the canonical is pointing them. Google will often de-index URLs that canonicalize to another URL, which I'm assuming you don't want
-
Hey Kirupa,
Short answer is that you're all good. The canonical is correct.
All the best,
Sean
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
-
Canonical vs 301 for index.php
Hello, we found recently quite a big error our index.php file had no canonical tag nor was a 301 redirect. So we put a canonical tag to it that it's the main www.examle.com duplicate . Now is there any difference in regards to link juice or Google 301 vs canonical tag ? I read that moz did a 301 from their index php. I understand one difference is that user then can Type in the URL if no 301, but I'm interested about ranking effect of it.
Technical SEO | | advertisingcloud0 -
Hreflang Tags - error: 'en' - no return tags
Hello, We have recently implemented Hreflang tags to improve the findability of our content in each specific language. However, Webmaster tool is giving us this error... Does anyone know what it means and how to solve it? Here I attach a screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/a4AsqLNtF6J Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Google + box on the right hand side
When you search on a company name in Google often the URL of the specific company is shown as 1st organic search result. Often one will also see a Google+ box on the right side when searching on a company name. This Google+ box includes a brand logo as well. Our company has also a Google+ account for several months. This page is also shown in the regular organic search results. But when I search on my specific company name, I don’t see the Google+ box on the right side of the results. However, when I search on my company name including my location, Google does show our Company information in Google Maps style, and that does include our last Google+ update as well. What do I need to do to show our Google+ information on the right side in the organic results when someone searches on our company name (without location), so our work and updates within Google+ are rewarded. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Technical SEO | | Onlinq0 -
Rel canonical between mirrored domains
Hi all & happy new near! I'm new to SEO and could do with a spot of advice: I have a site that has several domains that mirror it (not good, I know...) So www.site.com, www.site.edu.sg, www.othersite.com all serve up the same content. I was planning to use rel="canonical" to avoid the duplication but I have a concern: Currently several of these mirrors rank - one, the .com ranks #1 on local google search for some useful keywords. the .edu.sg also shows up as #9 for a dirrerent page. In some cases I have multiple mirrors showing up on a specific serp. I would LIKE to rel canonical everything to the local edu.sg domain since this is most representative of the fact that the site is for a school in Singapore but...
Technical SEO | | AlexSG
-The .com is listed in DMOZ (this used to be important) and none of the volunteers there ever respoded to requests to update it to the .edu.sg
-The .com ranks higher than the com.sg page for non-local search so I am guessing google has some kind of algorithm to mark down obviosly local domains in other geographic locations Any opinions on this? Should I rel canonical the .com to the .edu.sg or vice versa? I appreciate any advice or opinion before I pull the trigger and end up shooting myself in the foot! Best regards from Singapore!0 -
Rel="canonical" again
Hello everyone, I should rel="canonical" my 2 languages website /en urls to the original version without /en. Can I do this from the header.php? Should I rel="canonical" each /en page (eg. en/contatti, en/pagina) separately or can I do all from the general before the website title? Thanks if someone can help.
Technical SEO | | socialengaged0 -
Meta Title Tags
Hi, Are Meta Title Tag deemed by google to be unique if I use the same phrases by in a different order. For example 3 different pages <colgroup><col width="475"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | Studio33
| Online Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing | Invoicing Software |
| Online Invoicing | Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing Software |
| Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing | You will not it is the same keywords just in a different order. Is this unique enough or will google not be happy about it. Thanks Andrew0 -
Meta tags - better NOT to have?
OK ok . . . the SEOMox report card told me it's actually better NOT to have meta tag keywords on my page, because my competitors can then look at my page to see what words I am trying to target . . . That makes since, but is also painfully counter intuitive. I thought I would just double check and make sure . .. NO META TAGS KEYWORDS? and if so . . .. what (if anything) should I have in the meta tags?
Technical SEO | | damon12120 -
Rel canonical or 301 the Index Page?
Still a bit confused on best practice for /index.php showing up as duplicate for www.mysite.com. What do I need to do and How?
Technical SEO | | bozzie3110