Rel Canonical for Exact Same Copy?
-
I've read about using rel canonical tags for product pages like "blue shorts" vs "red shorts" but if I have two pages with the exact same copy - different URL's - but same copy, can I use a rel canonical tag and be okay for duplicate content purposes?
(There is is reason the page is exactly the same, at least for the time being, so I'm just focusing on how not to be get penalized as opposed to rewriting it at the moment).
Thanks,
Ruben
-
Thanks guys.
- Ruben
-
I second what Eric said.
Also, you'll want to be deliberate in choosing which one gets the canonical. Do some research on which one gets more traffic, has a higher page authority, and has good links pointing to it.
-
Definitely use rel=canonical for situations like that. If there's a solid business case to keep the pages live (A/B testing layout?), then yeah definitely make sure both pages are canonicalized to one main page for search engines. That will also help keep the other variation out of the index as Google (and other bots) recognize that you have multiple variations, but only one page they should be paying attention to.
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 question
I have at least three duplicate main pages on my website: www.augustbullocklaw.com www.augustbullocklaw.com/index augustbullocklaw.com I want the first one, www.augustbullocklaw.com to be the main page. I put this code on the index page and uploaded it to my site: http://www.augustbullocklaw.com/canonical-version-of-page/" rel="canonical" /> This code now appears on all three pages shown above. Did I do this correctly? I surmise that www.augustbullocklaw.com is pointing to itself. Is that ok? I don't know how to take the cononical code off the page that is the page I want to be the main page. (I don't know how to remove it from www.augustbullocklaw.com, but leave it on www.augustbullocklaw.com/index and augustbullocklaw.com) Thanks
Technical SEO | | Augster990 -
Rel=canonical overkill on duplicate content?
Our site has many different health centers - many of which contain duplicate content since there is topic crossover between health centers. I am using rel canonical to deal with this. My question is this: Is there a tipping point for duplicate content where Google might begin to penalize a site even if it has the rel canonical tags in place on cloned content? As an extreme example, a site could have 10 pieces of original content, but could then clone and organize this content in 5 different directories across the site each with a new url. This would ultimately result in the site having more "cloned" content than original content. Is this at all problematic even if the rel canonical is in place on all cloned content? Thanks in advance for any replies. Eric
Technical SEO | | Eric_Lifescript0 -
Canonicals for Real Estate
A real estate site has a landing page for a particular zip code: site.com/zip/99999 On this page, there are links which add arguments to the URL, resulting in structures like this: site.com/zip/99999?maxprice=1000000&maxbeds=3 My question is on using a canonical URL for the pages with arguments. These pages may have lots of duplicate content, so should I direct search engines back to the base URL for the search? (site.com/zip/99999) A side note is that these pages with arguments could have no listings returned (no listings found) or could come back with listings (then it wouldn't be duplicate), but that can change on a day to day basis.
Technical SEO | | SteveCastaneda0 -
Canonical Issues with Wordpress
Hi all, I have just started using Wordpress SEO by Yoast and still having a hard time correcting my Canonical issues for all posts with a .html at the end. The pluggin allows you to add a '/' to the end for canonical issues, but just for pages, not posts. How best in Wordpress to make my post change from .html/ to .html. I really don't want to go to the hassle to make each URL a new 301 redirect in my .htaccess. I hate the .html, but if they are going to stay, how can I make sure I get the .html/ link juice back to them. Many thanks!
Technical SEO | | RunningInTheRain0 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910 -
Duplicate Content and Canonical use
We have a pagination issue, which the developers seem reluctant (or incapable) to fix whereby we have 3 of the same page (slightly differing URLs) coming up in different pages in the archived article index. The indexing convention was very poorly thought up by the developers and has left us with the same article on, for example, page 1, 2 and 3 of the article index, hence the duplications. Is this a clear cut case of using a canonical tag? Quite concerned this is going to have a negative impact on ranking, of course. Cheers Martin
Technical SEO | | Martin_S0 -
Imlementation of Rel connical
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not This is an excellent post. But I couldn't find out one thing: all examples show the whle URL and I wonder if it's a problem to show a relative path instead is a problem? An example: you are on www.domain.com/articles/articles1.htm and you would like to Recl Connical to you are on www.domain.com/articles/articles2.htm Now, would both of these get it done right? Thanks, Andre
Technical SEO | | viventuraSEO0