Google ignoring Canonical and choosing its own
-
Hey Mozzers,
We have several products that all have upto 6 different versions, they are the same product but in a different specification. As users search via these specifications (within our website) it is beneficial to keep all 6 products as different listings on the website. In google however it is not.
So we kept all 6 listing but chose 1 to be the google landing page, the only different between them all is the technical specification + occasionally size. But 95% of the pages are the same.
Let call the products A, B, C, D, E, F, we made all the canonicals point to C because this is out best selling version of the product. However, google has chosen E to rank instead.
What is my best move here? Should i accept the page google has chosen and change the canonicals the point to that version or should I be stubborn and try to get google to change which version it ranks.
As always many thanks.
-
It's important to remember that Google in general takes canonical tags as more of a suggestion than a rule; they may decide that another page deserves to rank instead. Take a look at the version of the page that ranks: does it have more external or internal links pointing to it? You may be able to build up your canonical page by directing some additional link juice that way.
If it's all the same to you which version ranks, it might be easier to just take the hint and make the ranking page the canonical page; otherwise, it may take some time to build up those off-page signals to get that version to rank.
-
hmmm.. Interesting. Three weeks should be enough time.
The only thing I can think of is a mistake somewhere in your canonical tags. Let's see what other MOZers have to say about this.
-
Hey Dmitrii,
They all seem to be set up correctly. No mistakes mentioned in the article are present.
I've given it about 3 weeks so far, which may or may not be long enough i suppose
-
Hi there.
Have you read this? http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html
That might answer some of your questions.
Now, did you allow some time for Google to "realize" canonical links after you made them live?
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
-
Ranking on google but not Bing?
Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Apps content Google indexation ?
I read some months back that Google was indexing the apps content to display it into its SERP. Does anyone got any update on this recently ? I'll be very interesting to know more on it 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoomGeek0 -
Google disavow tool
I have an algorithmic penalty on one of my websites. I never received a notification of a manual penalty in GWMT and even sent in a reconsideration request 6 months ago ad they told me their were no manual penalties on the website. I have cleaned up my link profile and what I could not clean up I sent in using the Google disavow tool a few days ago. I've heard to just wait if it's algorithmic or should I send in another reconsideration request for disavow links tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarkHIggins0 -
Google places keyword variations
Hi all, I have a site that is ranking #1 in Google Places for its main <city><keyword>search... but it does not rank for any of its basic keyword variations, which I find very confusing.</keyword></city> ie (just an example) Chicago Caterer (ranked #1 in google places)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | x2264983x
Chicago Caterers (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Company (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Companies (etc..) How can I secure a google places ranking for these simple keyword variations? Do I build links to the google plus page using that anchor text? Do I get citations that contain that keyword somewhere on the page? Do I optimize for these keyword variations on the actual website itself? (not the places listing). Obviously I don't stuff these keywords into the google places listing. Any help would be much appreciated!0 -
Alternative to rel canonical?
Hello there, we have a problem. Let's say we have a website www.mainwebsite.com Then you have 40 websites like this: www.retailer1.mainwebsite.com www.retailer2.mainwebsite.com www.retailer3.mainwebsite.com www.retailer4.mainwebsite.com www.retailer5.mainwebsite.com www.retailer6.mainwebsite.com … an so on In order to avoid the duplicate content penalty from Google we've added a rel="canonical" in each 40 sub-websites mapping each page of them to www.mainwebsite.com Our issue is that now, all our retailers (each owner of www.retailer-X.mainwebsite.com) are complaining about the fact that they are disappeared from Google. How can we avoid to use rel="canonical" in the sub-website and not being penalised by Google for duplicate content in www.mainwebsite.com? Many thanks, all your advices are much appreciated. YESdesign team
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YESdesign0 -
Dropped Out of Google and Bing
I am helping with a site that at one time I had on page 1 for Google/Bing. Site started to slip in rankings, then someone else did a makeover of the store and botched things by renaming pages, having errors in pages (multiple head/body), mismatch page names from sitemap, etc. Site slipped to page 4/5. I righted things, fixed duplication using canonicalization, made some other changes. Now site is gone completely from Google/Bing for desired keyword. No penalties. Site still shows if do search on domain name. Site is www.plussizeplum.com (plus size lingerie, sorry), keyword target is plus size lingerie. Anyone have any clues, tips, etc on why we fell off the face of the earth? Page Authority/Domain Authority are both comparable to most of the page 1/2 sites for same thing. Thanks for any advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dlcohen0 -
Scanning For Duplicate Canonical Tags
I'm looking for a solution for identifying pages on a site that have either empty/undefined canonical tags, or duplicate canonical tags (meaning the tag occurs twice within the same page). I've used Screaming Frog to view sitewide canonical values, but the tool cannot identify when pages use the tag twice, nor can it differentiate between pages that have an empty canonical tag and pages that have no canonical tag at all. Any help finding a tool of some sort that can assist me in doing this would be much appreciated, as I'm working with tens of thousands of pages and can't do this manually.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edmundsseo0