One more question about rel=canonical
-
I'm still trying to wrap my head around rel=canonical and its importance. Thanks to the community, I've been able to understand most of it. Still, I have a couple of very specific questions:
- I share certain blog posts on the Huffington Post. Here's an example: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/cedric-lizotte/munich-travel-guide_b_13438956.html - Of course I post these on my blog as well. Here: http://www.continentscondiments.com/things-munich-classics/ - Obviously the HuffPo has a huge DA, and I'll never match it. However the original post is mine, on my blog, and not on the HuffPo. They wont - obviously - add a rel=canonical just for me and for the sake of it, they have a million other things to do.
QUESTION: Should I add a rel=canonical to my own site pointing to the post on the HuffPost? What would be the advantage? Should I just leave this alone?
- I share blog posts on Go4TravelBlog too. Example: http://www.go4travelblog.com/dallmayr-restaurant-munich/ - but, once again, the original post is on one of my blogs. In this case, it's on another blog of mine: http://www.thefinediningblog.com/dallmayr-restaurant-in-munich/
QUESTION: Well it's pretty much the same! Should I beg Go4TravelBlog to add a rel=canonical pointing to mine? If they refuse, what do I do? Would it be better to add a rel=canonical from my site to theirs, or do I fight it out and have a rel=canonical pointing to my own post? Why?
Thanks a million for your help!
-
Unfortunately I don't do very mainstream stuff, which means that my content isn't very shareable. On top of that, I don't write provocative pieces, which means that they aren't commented on a lot. I know how to do those things and I did them for past employers, but I've chosen personally not to do so because I find them toxic. This also means that my readership, at least on my blog, is very low. Of course I could go back to my old ways - I did here with a lot of success: http://www.thefinediningblog.com/food-bloggers-post-negative-reviews-comped-meals-thoughts-strange-industry/ - but I don't like the vicious arguments that ensue on social media.
Can I take a look at your blog? Maybe I could pick up a few ideas!
And, once again, I haven't made any money from having a blog. I got, what, $15 from Google once? That's about it!
-
It is important not to get carried away with "publishing articles on other sites for links' especially if those links are in highly optimized anchor text. A couple posts on HP with a link or two is OK, but if you are doing this alot and Google is still doing the old style Penguin penalties, it can kill the value of your domain permanently.
In the topic area of my business, I don't publish anything on other websites. I want to spend all of my writing time building the value of my brand. I feel that if I am a worthy author, my readers will share my work for me and my need to promote it will be zero to minimal. This has always worked well with the audiences that I write form.
-
Yes, and yes. And also consider Egol's comments.
-
EGOL, thanks for your thoughts.
I'm a freelance writer. I've never made a penny with my blog and probably never will. It's a business card more than anything.
Try to get them to give you rel=canonical. If they will do that then publishing on their site is building value for your business. If they will not do that then it tells you something important about them. They are 100% for themselves and are all about having other people carry them around in a sedan chair.
Yes, I agree with you fully that they want free content to carry their brand. That's the whole premise of their business and that's why they have so many problems with disgruntled employees. That being said, if you take a look at the link I shared, you can see that every paragraph or so links directly to one of my blog posts. What I shared on their website is more or less a recap of all of my own blog posts for this specific city.
On top of that, well, there's no better business card, as a writer, than a series of posts of the Huff Post linking towards my stuff!
Thanks again for your thoughts, I'll keep everything in mind, of course.
-
Hm. So that probably means that I don't have any sort of possibility towards modifying the rel=canonical on the HuffPost. Right? Can you think of any other way? I only have access to the body.
This means that I should simply ignore and keep going. Right?
And if I can get go4TravelBlog (or any other place where my content is published) to add a rel=canonical pointing towards my version of it, I'd be golden. Right?
Thanks again!
-
I totally agree with Adriaan's comments.
I'll add a few thoughts about publishing philosophy....
Keep in mind the amount of time that you spent on creating content that you give away AND the value that the content can bring if it is unique to your website and not available anywhere else on the web.
If your goal is to "get your message out" then by all means get it published in as many places as you can. If your goal is to "build value for your business" then you have to think about things carefully.
If you can write an article in a short amount of time and give it to HP and in return get a link and a brand mention then it might be worth letting them use it. If I was going to do this, I would publish it first on my own site and make sure that it is indexed and then give it to HP for publication there.
Pay attention to where you copy of the article ranks in the search engines. If HP is always outranking you for your own content that makes them a much less attractive place to publish your content. If that is happening and they will not give you rel=canonical, then I would probably stop giving them my content. Giving them my content under those conditions is not "building value for my business".
Try to get them to give you rel=canonical. If they will do that then publishing on their site is building value for your business. If they will not do that then it tells you something important about them. They are 100% for themselves and are all about having other people carry them around in a sedan chair.
All of the above was written about content that you can generate easily and with minimal cost. In situations where you have a real masterpiece, then there is a stronger case for keeping it only on your own site and spending your efforts on "promoting" it in other locations but not giving the content away.
So, before you give away content, think about the many options that you have and choose the one that "gets your word out" or "builds your business" to a maximum degree. There is no "one size fits all".
-
I'm afraid not, Google is very clear on this matter: _When we encounter a rel=canonical designation in the , it’s disregarded. _https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html
-
Thanks for this answer.
Of course I can't go play around in HuffPost's headers. What I can do, though, is change the body, which includes the code and the href's. Would a rel=canonical in the body still work? How would I go about implementing it?
-
Placing a rel=canonical on your own blogposts to HuffPost is essentially telling Google that you're not unique enough to be indexed and that you want all ranking juice to flow to HP. Which isn't the case I guess. I would leave it alone. Nevertheless it will be very hard to outrank HP in this case.
This is what Yoast tells us about cross domain canonicals: _"You might have the same piece of content on several domains. For instance, SearchEngineJournal regularly republishes articles from Yoast.com (with explicit permission). Look at every one of those articles, and you’ll see a rel=canonical link point right back at our original article. This means all the links pointing at their version of the article count towards the ranking of our canonical version. They get to use our content to please their audience; we get a clear benefit from it too. Everybody wins." _(https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/#cross-domain-canonical)
So IF you can get HP to put a canonical to your own blog, this would be highly favorable for your own ranking. You could use the 'everybody wins' argument to try to get this working.
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
-
What is the Impact of Canonical to a Canonical Page?
hey folks, How does google respond to this, canonical to a canonical page? i.e page A is canonical to Page which is already/also canonical to PAGE C. Thanks In advance AK
On-Page Optimization | | AnkammaRao0 -
Newbie question - Optimize homepage or create new page?
Hey everyone! I'm new here and wondering if anybody could help with a question. I'm trying to optimize for the keyword "meet people". I've attached a screenshot of the Moz SERP report for the top 10 results for this keyword for Google (UK). Unfortunately my domain doesn't make the top ten - we're currently raked 11th. My domain - tastebuds.fm - has a domain authority of 53 and the homepage has a page authority of 61 which is way way above the scores for the 1st placed result. What am I doing wrong? Should I focus on competing using a page that contains the keyword eg. http://tastebuds.fm/meet-people OR should I work on improving the 11th place of my homepage by tweaking the content? Bear in mind I already have an A grade for on-page optimization of the homepage for the keyword in question. If I decided to optimize a new page... how long would it take before I ranked well for the page if the only place it was linked was from the homepage? Also what should I put on this new page? Our homepage already converts well so should I duplicate it somehow? 4ENqCPz.png
On-Page Optimization | | AlexTP0 -
Should I add canonical tag on these pages?
Hi folks I have some pages that used to rank pretty well..but I believe it is affected due to the content similarities. Here is one the sub category pages http://www.ilovebodykits.com/category/98/2/Full-Body-Kits_Duraflex.html the main category page http://www.ilovebodykits.com/category/98/Exterior_Body-Styling_Full-Body-Kits.html These 2 links have very similar contents. The content are dynamic generated by template and I don't think I am able to change content for each individual pages since there are over 2000-3000 of them or more. Should I use canonical tag on the Duraflex.html page to give the main category page all the link juices and credits? There are about 20 other pages like this under this main category. Is it right to canonical all of them? Please let me know if anyone has any suggestion.. thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ilovebodykits0 -
Several keywords and only one page to posicionate
Hi there! I'm new in SEOMOZ and the SEO world (so excuse me if the question is so elemental.....). I'm having trouble when trying to apply the right seo strategy to one of the page of my companys corporate site. My company offers serveral services in the field of the communications&advertisement. Not being considered as different items in the services menu of the website is a requirement for the company. They want to describe them (all services) in a single page. The problem is that there's one title, one description tag, one url and many relevant keywords related. Should I convince them that this structure is a bad one regarding SEO or there's a way to solve this situation? Thanks in advanced.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Dupelicate content home page and custom page question
I am working on a website that got hit by the penguin update. Didn't get hit terribly bad, but dropped from number one to number 9. As I'm going through the pages, the theme and content is a mess. To give an example, say the site is about custom colored marbles. The main page content covers custom colored marbles, custom promotional marbles, custom glass marbles, etc. Custom colored marbles is mentioned and covered on all pages, which I am going back and trying to make each page theme specific. There is also a custom page, so I am at a cross roads on how best to employ the focus of the custom page and the home page. I am thinking the home page should emphasize colored marbles, and the custom page should emphasize custom colored marbles. My fear is that making such a drastic change will bounce the site completely off front page and that it will take time for the custom page to come up in rankings. AS it stands now I am confused as to how it even ranks on first page as there's two pages with custom colored marbles emphasis. Id like to clean this up as much as possible so there are no big hits with future google updates, but I don't want the site to drop off either as that would be hard to explain to the owner. Yeah, we are cleaning up your site and making it google compliant and in so doing you no longer rank on first page. That won't put food on the table. Thanks for any advise on this.
On-Page Optimization | | anthonytjm0 -
Canonical to the page itself?
Hello, I'd like to know what happens when you use canonical to the same page itself, like: Page "example.com" rel canonical="example.com" Does that impact in something? Bad or good? See ya!
On-Page Optimization | | seomasterbrasil1 -
Cross-domain canonical
HI, We've got a German e-commerce site on an .at domain and would like to have a copy on a .de domain as we expect higher conversions for German users there. The idea now would be to make use of the cross-domain canonical tag, create a "duplicate" on the .de domain and add a canonical tag on all sites and refer to the original content on the .at domain. That would mean the .de won't rank, but German users could see the .de domain, Austrian users the .at domain in the address bar and everybody could feel "at home" ... that's the theory. What do you guys think? Valid strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | gmellak0 -
Confirmation regarding canonical and syndication google tags
Hi, We are in the process of improving our CMS upstream to resolve our duplicate content issues. We were hit pretty hard by the Panda update. One of the steps we have taken is implementation of the canonical link tag across all domains in our site. You see, we are a news release service with muliple channels and websites to represent each. The problem is that a client will submit a release and in many cases the news item is relevant to multiple channels I.E. multiple websites under the same IP range. Site Examples:
On-Page Optimization | | jarrett.mackay
www.hotelnewsresource.com www.restaurantnewsresource.com
www.travelindustrywire.com From a user perspective, it makes sense that they should be able to access the article from the site they are browsing without being redirected to the site we feel carries the most relevance. We hope the canconical tag will resolve this issue for us. I have also read about the syndication tag and was looking for feedback or recommendations if we should implement that also, but it may be overkill as the two tags objectives seem to be similar. I guess my first question is if the syndication tag is only used by Google News. Secondly, and a little off topic is that we also offer an API and like many other sites, I have read, our content partners are now doing better in primary and long tail rankings even thought we are the original source. My assumption is that we should modify the API to force using both caconical and syndication tags as well. Lastly, I´m curious if anyone has tested the original source tag and if we should implement that as well. Thanks everyone. Jarrett0