How rel=canonical works with index, noindex ?
-
Hello all,
I had always wondered how the index,noindex affects to the canonical. And also if the canonical post should be included in the sitemap or not.
I posted this
http://www.comparativadebancos.co...
and with a rel=canonical to this that was published at the beginning of the month
http://www.comparativadebancos.co...
but then I have the first one in google
http://www.google.com/search?aq=f...
May be this is evident for you but, what is really doing the canonical? If I publish something with the canonical pointing to another page, will it still be indexed by google but with no penalty for duplicate content? Or the usual behaviour should have been to havent indexed the first post but just the second one?
Should I also place a noindex in the first post in addition to the canonical?
What am I missing here?
thanks
-
Antonio,
I came into this question a little late so I'm not sure how it was back when you asked it, but right now the problem I see is that the page that does exist ( http://www.comparativadebancos.com/mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ ) has a rel canonical tag pointing to the page that doesn't exist ( http://www.comparativadebancos.com/depositos/marzo/ ), which returns a 404 response code.
I think right now the best thing you can do would be to change the rel canonical tag on /mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ to be http://www.comparativadebancos.com/mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ .
-
I im saying that it is important to Google to tell them more what you want to use as your content without possible parameter "/" "www" adding a duplicate content penalty to your website.
-
Hi,
I agree that it will not help you to too much with stolen content. Unless Google has indexed you 1st they would probably give you 1st rights to the disputed content. The reason I believe you are getting with such good results on Google a non-indexed URL or what should be nonindexed is Google indexes everything regardless and from what Matt Cutts said "According to Google, the canonical link element is not considered to be a directive, but a hint that the web crawler will "honor strongly" "
my belief is Google is throwing more honor to dealing with the canonical.
I hope I was of some help.
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
-
Blueprint, as far as I understand it can't really be used to prevent people stealing your content because you need to have to similar versions and place the tag pointing to the one that is of lesser value or that you don't want to come up in place of the original. Or are you saying if you find some of your content elsewhere offsite you can place a canonical link to it, and this will tell the spiders it is your content rather than theres?
Antonio, if you have placed the tag on the newer page pointing to the older page you are telling the spiders that the newer page is the preferred/more original content.
-
I would say that rel=canonical is one of the single most vital parts of a website no matter how it's Written or hosted all must be set up to appropriately take traffic and simply tell Google I'm not trying to duplicate my content here is my <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/" /> and that way if anyone does haven't come across your content and try to make it their own they will be the ones penalized for stealing it not you. Always put this tag in the page that you have created and the one that you want Google to understand is your copy of your website content here is some info from Matt Cutts at Google as well as Wikipedia hope I am of help
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/rel-canonical-html-head/
A canonical link element is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the "canonical", or "preferred", version of a web page<sup id="cite_ref-googleblog_0-0" class="reference">[1]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">[3]</sup> as part of search engine optimization.
Duplicate content issues occur when the same content is accessible from multiple URLs.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference">[4]</sup> For example, <tt>http://www.example.com/page.html</tt> would be considered by search engines to be an entirely different page to<tt>http://www.example.com/page.html?parameter=1</tt>, even though both URLs return the same content. Another example is essentially the same (tabular) content, but sorted differently.
In February 2009, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced support for the canonical link element, which can be inserted into the section of a web page, to allow webmasters to prevent these issues.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[5]</sup> The canonical link element helps webmasters make clear to the search engines which page should be credited as the original.
According to Google, the canonical link element is not considered to be a directive, but a hint that the web crawler will "honor strongly".<sup id="cite_ref-googleblog_0-1" class="reference">[1]</sup>
While the canonical link element has its benefits, Matt Cutts, who is the head of Google's webspam team, has claimed that the search engine prefers the use of 301 redirects. Cutts claims the preference for redirects is because Google's spiders can choose to ignore a canonical link element if they feel it is more beneficial to do so.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">[6]</sup>
[edit]Examples of the
canonical
link element<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/" />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/page.html" />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/directory/page.html" /> ```
-
you should give it time to settle down in the SERPS ... the results are muddy for a while but your canonicals will eventually show up if they have been implemented correctly.
-
I have already done it but my question come after this one
Where Rand suggest me to do the canonical thing I am explaining here. So my doubt is why it is indexing the new post better than the old one and how this is supposed to work.
From my understanding and also from your link, if I use rel=canonical is the "canonical" url the one that has to be indexed and not the one with "rel=canonical" but it has not been my case and now I have both indexed...
Any suggestion?
-
Is it the opposite. The new one has a rel=canonical to the old one because it was written with the same content that the old one but then it appears in the index.
Then the new one has been indexed and I thought it wasnt going to be indexed. But at the same time it ranks much higger than the old one...
-
According to Google a rel=canonical is just a hint 9although they say they strongly honour it) - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html. This might explain why your old page is still showing up int he results.
Has your new page been indexed yet?
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
-
Rel=canonical or 301 to pass on page authority/juice
I have a large body of product support documentation and there are similar pages for each of versions of the product, with minor changes as the product changes. The two oldest versions of this documentation get the best ranking and are powering Google snippets--however, this content is out of date. The team responsible for the support documentation wants current pages to rank higher. I suggested 301 redirects but they want to maintain the old page content for clients still using the older version of the product. Is there a way to move a page's power to a more updated version of the page, but without wiping out the old content? Considering recommending canonical tags, but I'm not sure this will get me all the way there either as there are some differences between pages, especially as the product has changed over time. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | rachelholdgrafer0 -
Paginated pages are being indexed?
I have lots of paginated pages which are being indexed. Should I add the noindex tag to page 2 onwards? The pages currently have previous and next tags in place. Page one also has a self-referencing canonical.
Technical SEO | | WTH0 -
Rel Canonical ? please help again!
Hi, I have been looking at the on page section and the grading. And I have noticed on nearly all of my pages an error. No More Than One Canonical URL Tag Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt> <dd>2</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>The canonical URL tag is meant to be employed only a single time on an individual URL (much like the title element or meta description). To ensure the search engines properly parse the canonical source, employ only a single version of this tag.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Remove all but a single canonical URL tag</dd> </dl> <a class="more expanded">Minimize</a> Please how do I make sure these canonicals are working properly, My rankings are getting worst fro long tail and short tail keywords. I am not even ranking for the main keywords "Probate" at all now! Our site is probate, we sell probate, we talk aout probate and now we are out of the top 200??? http://www.finalduties.co.uk Kind Regards Elissa HAyes
Technical SEO | | Chris__Chris0 -
Rel=Canonical Header Location
Hello, I've been trying to get our rel=canonical issues sorted out. A fellow named Ayaz very kindly pointed out that I'm trying to put the code into the wysisyg editor, but this might not be the best place to put the code. We are using Drupal 6. Where do I insert the code? head> <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/blog/my-awesome-blog-post"> Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
Canonical URL
I previously set the canonical Url in google web masters to the non www version, when I check my on page opt, it tells me that I have a critical issue with this. Should I change it in google web masters back to the www version? if so is there the possibility of negative results? Or is there a better way to deal with this? Note, I have inbound links pointing to both types.
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Regarding Rel Canonical on PhoneTech.dk
Hi All you Seo Experts from seomoz I have a question about one of my webshops where I have the same product listed in different categories where I on the duplicate pages use the Rel Caninical Tag on, that points to the main product url. I just have to verify with you guys that I did it correctly Example on the shop. This is just an example www.phonetech.dk/shop/product1.html - This is Main Duplicates www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3G/product1.html - Canonical Tag on this one pointing to the main. www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3g/backcovers/product1.html - Canonical Tag on this one pointing to the main. www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3gs/colorbackcovers/product1.html - Canonical Tag here also pointing to main Hope you guys can help me that my use of Canonical Tag is correct. Regards Christian - Denmark
Technical SEO | | noerdar0 -
Page not being indexed
Hi all, On our site we have a lot of bookmaker reviews, and we are ranking pretty good for most bookmaker names as keywords, however a single bookmaker seems to have been shunned by Google. For a search "betsafe" in Denmark, this page does not appear among the top 50: http://www.betxpert.com/bookmakere/betsafe All of our other review pages rank in top 10-20 for the bookmaker name as keyword. What to do if Google has "banned" a page? Best regards, Rasmus
Technical SEO | | rasmusbang0 -
Indexing of flash files
When Google indexes a flash file, do they use a library for such a purpose ? What set me thinking was this blog post ( although old ) which states - "we expanded our SWF indexing capabilities thanks to our continued collaboration with Adobe and a new library that is more robust and compatible with features supported by Flash Player 10.1."
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050