Is the full URL necessary for successful Canonical Links?
-
Hi, my first question and hopefully an easy enough one to answer.
Currently in the head element of our pages we have canonical references such as:
(Yes, untidy URL...we are working on it!)
I am just trying to find out whether this snippet of the full URL is adequete for canonicalization or if the full domain is needed aswell.
My reason for asking is that the SEOmoz On-Page Optimization grading tool is 'failing' all our pages on the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value.
I have been unable to find a definitive answer on this, although admittedly most examples do use the full URL. (I am not the site developer so cannot simply change this myself, but rather have to advise him in a weekly meeting).
So in short, presumably using the full URL is best practise, but is it essential to its effectiveness when being read by the search engines? Or could there be another reason why the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value is not being green ticked?
Thank you very much, I appreciate any advice you can give.
-
Thanks I will get the full URLs implemented to avoid any future confusions.
I can't give an exact size of the site but I know it is much larger than it should be. It seems as though our CMS has been unnecessarily producing new URLs for the same pages over and over which we are aiming to fix very soon.
-
Thank you for your fast responses!
Sorry Damien, I am at odds as to how I missed this bit of information!
In light of this, do you have any clues as to why SEOmoz on page diagnostics does not like our canonical references?
-
Thank you for your fast responses!
Sorry Damien, I am at odds as to how I missed this bit of information!
In light of this, do you have any clues as to why SEOmoz on page diagnostics does not like our canonical references?
-
Interesting that Google mentions absolute and relative urls, but they don't specifically address root relative urls (what this is, since it begins with the "/") or show it in their examples.
-
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394
Part of relevance -
Can the link be relative or absolute?
The rel="canonical" attribute can be used with relative or absolute links, but we recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or difficulties. If your document specifies a base link, any relative links will be relative to that base link.
-
If you check half way down the page it answers exactly what you're after.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
In short, it's fine
DD
..if you can't be bothered finding it:
"Can I use a relative path to specify the canonical, such as ?
Yes, relative paths are recognized as expected with the tag. Also, if you include a <base> link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL."
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
-
Which Version Url to Use for Canonical Tags and in General for Homepage.
I want to put canonical tags on the homepage of a site. cant figure out the version of URL of the homepage should be with a / at the end or without the / ( www.example.com of www.example.com/ ) if I put into the google the URL with / I get the URL without the / in my browser, and it isn't showing as a redirect in my moz extension or other tools. But when I copy the URL from browser and paste elsewhere it pastes with a / I have two questions 1 - in general how does it work with URLs of homepages - I see this happening with lots of sites? 2 - which URL should I set as the canonical version of my homepage? Thanks so much
Technical SEO | | Ruchy0 -
Confused on footer links (Which are best practices for footer links on other websites?)
Hello folks, We are eCommerce web design and Development Company and we give do follow links of our website to every projects which we have done with specific keywords. So now the concern is we are seeing huge amount of back-links are being generated from single root domain for particular keyword in webmaster tools. So what should be the best way to practice this? Should we give no follow attribute to it or can use our company logo with link? LtMjHER.png
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Canonical redirects
Hello, I have a quick question: I use wordpress for my website. I have a plugin for translating the website in other languages. Thus, I have 2 versions of urls, one with /en, one without (original languale). This has been seen as duplicate content. I have been advised that the best to do is to use canonical redirect. Should I use it on the general header.php (the only header I can find in the CMS), or should I redirect each page singularly? I believe the second is the best way, but I can't find headers and txt documents for each page in my FTP. As well I have seen this post, in which is explained that canonical redirects can be done directly in the general header.php http://www.bin-co.com/blog/2009/02/avoid-duplicate-content-use-canonical-url-in-wordpress-fix-plugin/ Is it true? You have any suggestion?
Technical SEO | | socialengaged
Thanks! 🙂 Eugenio0 -
Links from Instructables.com?
This is a silly newbie question. But will posting on www.instructables.com with some valuable content and url link back to my site help with "linking"? Or do they put a no-follow on all links on their site? Thanks for answering! Ron
Technical SEO | | yatesandcojewelers0 -
Nofollow link passing link juice
Can a link which is nofollwed pass link juice ? Please see the discussion at - http://www.seomoz.org/q/if-multiple-links-on-a-page-point-to-the-same-url-and-one-of-them-is-no-followed-does-that-impact-the-one-that-isn-t
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
If multiple links on a page point to the same URL, and one of them is no-followed, does that impact the one that isn't?
Page A has two links on it that both point to Page B. Link 1 isn't no-follow, but Link 2 is. Will Page A pass any juice to Page B?
Technical SEO | | Jay.Neely0 -
Is link cloaking bad?
I have a couple of affiliate gaming sites and have been cloaking the links, the reason I do this is to stop have so many external links on my sites. In the robot.txt I tell the bots not to index my cloaked links. Is this bad, or doesnt it really matter? Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | jwdesign0 -
If two links from one page link to another, how can I get the second link's anchor text to count?
I am working on an e-commerce site and on the category pages each of the product listings link to the product page twice. The first is an image link and then the second is the product name. I want to get the anchor text of the second link to count. If I no-follow the image link will that help at all? If not is there a way to do this?
Technical SEO | | JordanJudson0