Rel Canonical Link on the Canonical Page
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Is there a problem with placing a rel=canonical link on the canonical page - in addition to the duplicate pages? For example, would that create create an endless loop where the canonical page keeps referring to itself?
Two examples that are troubling me are:
- My home site is www.1099pro.com which is exactly the same as www.1099pro.com/index.asp (all updates to the home page are made by updating the index.asp page). I want www.1099pro.com/index.asp to have the rel=canonical link to point to my standard homepage www.1099pro.com but any update that I make on the index page is automatically incorporated into www.1099pro.com as well. I don't have access to my hosting web server and any updates I make have to be done to the specific landing pages/templates.
- I am also creating a new website that could possible have pages with duplicate content in the future. I would like to already include the rel=canonical link on the standard canonical page even though there is not duplicate content yet.
Any help really would be appreciated. I've read a ton of articles on the subject but none really define whether or not it is ok to have the rel=canonical link on both the canonical page and the duplicate pages. The closest explanation was in a MOZ article that it was ok but the answer was fuzzy.
-Mike
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Thanks CleverPhD! That was the decisive answer I've been looking for
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I forgot to add. I use a canonical on all my printer friendly versions pointing to the original page and then I have a self canonical on that page - again on thousands of pages. AOK.
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No problemo. Take a deep breath. In your scenario
has a canonical link to
and since they are duplicates
will canonical link to
That is no problemo, double aok, extra sprinkles on top. Have a page canonical link to itself is actually a best practice. If anyone scrapes your home page - you have a link back to your site and for other good reasons. I have a site with thousands of pages that self canonical and it is no problemo.
http://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions
From Dr. Pete
" ... is it alright to put a rel=canonical tag on the canonical version of the URL, pointing back to itself? Practically speaking – yes, it is, but you don't have to. Early on, there were hints that both Google and Bing preferred that you not overuse rel=canonical. Over time, though, their stances seemed to soften, and I’ve seen no evidence in recent history of a properly used, self-referencing canonical causing any harm.
This is often just a practical issue – many URLs share common templates, and the code needed to display a rel=canonical tag on just the duplicates and not the canonical version of a page can get messy and increase your chance of mistakes. Personally, I believe that the search engines recognized the reality most webmasters face and adjusted their initial, conservative stance"
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