Rel=Canonical URLs?
-
If I had two pages:
PageA about Cats
PageB about Dogs
If PageA had a link rel=canonical to PageB, but the content is different, how would Google resolve this and what would users see if they searched "Cats" or "Dogs?"
If PageA 301 redirected to PageB, (no content in PageA since it's 301 redirected), how would Google resolve this and what would users see if they searched "Cats" or "Dogs?"
-
I don't know on that. This is an older question -- you might try asking this as a separate new question, where more people will see it.
-
would Google ignore your canonical tag in totality or for only the pages implemented incorrectly?
-
rel=canonical is one of the things google will not always follow, if they think it may be implemented wrong. Barry Schwartz reported from SMX West on a slightly different question about implementation (paginated results) at http://www.seroundtable.com/seo-canonical-pagination-13094.html. The following excerpt should apply to your situation (emphasis mine). I have seen other reports too where Google has determined that canonical wasn't implemented correctly and ignored the instruction.
Not only that, if you do, Google may ignore it because Google uses methods to determine if the canonical tag command is actually something valid for that case. So if you canonical page 2 to page 1 and page 2 is not similar enough to page 1, Google may ignore your canonical tag.
-
I'm trying to understand the deep context of how Google (and others) treat rel=canonical tags.
There are a few situations that becomes relevant to understand how it works (rather than just code and pray):
- If we are 301 redirecting PageA, but PageB still has rel=canonical of the URL of PageA, will Google still have PageA as its index? One reason may be, the URL of PageA is more attractive (URL friendly).
- We want to know the "delta" of how much content does Google determine as "duplicate content" when Google chooses to use the rel=canonical instead of the natural URL. I'm suspecting that people may be abusing this, creating a hundred variation of the same page but using one rel=canonical.
- Some of our 301 redirect work is affected by this because the client doesn't want the new URLs indexed yet.
- Some legacy CMS tracking/systems that generates funny URLs (it increments each time you make an edit. So a url like PageA.php becomes PageA.php?version=2, this drives us nuts) is causing a lot of duplicate content - but their CMS sometimes does some wacky 301 forwards. We need a temporary solution until we can fix the programming logic of the CMS.
-
is there any particular reason do you want to accomplish it? Can you please tell us what are you trying to achieve.
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 Issue On AMP
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MuhammadQasimAttari
I have one issue about canonical. kindly guide me about it. I have a site example.com/abc and I convert it on an amp and know its URLs is example.com/abc=?amp. but the search console tells me to add the proper canonical URL but both pages are the same. kindly guide me about it. what will I do?0 -
Rel=Canonical Vs. 301 for blog articles
Over the last few years, my company has acquired numerous different companies -- some of which were acquired before that. Some of the products acquired were living on their previous company's parent site vs. having their own site dedicated to the product. The decision has been made that each product will have their own site moving forward. Since the product pages, blog articles and resource center landing pages (ex. whitepapers LPs) were living on the parent site, I'm struggling with the decision to 301 vs. rel=canonical those pages (with the new site being self canonicaled). I'm leaning toward take-down and 301 since rel=canonicals are simply suggestions to Google and a new domain can get all the help it can to start ranking. Are there any cons to doing so?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mfcb0 -
Competing URLs
Hi We have a number of blogs that compete with our homepage for some keywords/phrases. The URLs of the blogs contain the keywords/phrases. I would like to re-work the blogs so that they target different keywords that don't compete and are more relevant. Should I change the URLs as I think this is what is mainly causing the issue? If so, should I 301 old URL's to the homepage? For example, say we we're a site that specialised in selling plastic cups. Currently there is a blog with the URL www.mysite.com/plastic-cups that outranks the homepage for _plastic cups. _The blog isn't particularly relevant to plastic cups and the homepage should rank for this term. How should I let Google know that it is the homepage that is most relevant for this term? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Buffalo_71 -
Client wants to remove mobile URLs from their sitemap to avoid indexing issues. However this will require SEVERAL billing hours. Is having both mobile/desktop URLs in a sitemap really that detrimental to search indexing?
We had an enterprise client ask to remove mobile URLs from their sitemaps. For their website both desktop & mobile URLs are combined into one sitemap. Their website has a mobile template (not a responsive website) and is configured properly via Google's "separate URL" guidelines. Our client is referencing a statement made from John Mueller that having both mobile & desktop sitemaps can be problematic for indexing. Here is the article https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-sitemaps-20137.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
We would be happy to remove the mobile URLs from their sitemap. However this will unfortunately take several billing hours for our development team to implement and QA. This will end up costing our client a great deal of money when the task is completed. Is it worth it to remove the mobile URLs from their main website to be in adherence to John Mueller's advice? We don't believe these extra mobile URLs are harming their search indexing. However we can't find any sources to explain otherwise. Any advice would be appreciated. Thx.0 -
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Use Canonical or Robots.txt for Map View URL without Backlink Potential
I have a Page X with lots of unique content. This page has a "Map view" option, which displays some of the info from Page X, but a lot is ommitted. Questions: Should I add canonical even though Map View URL does not display a lot of info from Page X or adding to robots.txt or noindex, follow? I don't see any back links coming to Map View URL Should Map View page have unique H1, title tag, meta des?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
I get warnings for overly dynamic urls, but have canonical links in place.
Hi, Seomoz gives me warnings for overly dynamic urls. This is mostly caused by a crumbtrail system. I have a canonical link in the header for all the urls I receive warnings on, should I still worry about this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mooij0 -
Cross Domain Rel Canonical for Affiliates?
Hi We use the Cross Domain Rel Canonical for duplicate content between our own websites, but what about affiliates sites who want our XML feed, (descriptions of our products). We don´t mind being credited but would this present a danger for us? Who is controlling the use of that cross domain rel canonical, us in our feed or them? Is there another way around it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0