Canonical category pages
-
A couple of years ago I used to receive a lot of traffic via my category pages but now I don't receive as much, in the past year I've modified the category pages to canonical.
I have 15 genres for the category pages, other than the most recent sorting there is no sorting available for the users on the cat pages, a recent image link added can over time drop off to page 2 of the category page, for example
mysite.com/cat-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-23. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/dog-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-53. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/turtle-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-2. New image link can drop off to page 2.
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
One thing that I have noticed is the unique popup short description tooltips that I have on the image links only appears in google for the first pages of each category page, it seems to ignore the other pages. In view of this am I right in applying canonical ref or just treating it as normal pages.?
thanks
-
I'm going to have to hold off on this google have done an update today which is why we've now dropped from p4 to p14. I've posted a message here
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en&start=1360
-
No Problem - Keep us posted!
-
thanks Damien
I'm going to give this a go once my website re-appears in the search engine. After 1.5 years at number four it's decided to disappear today. I think google anticipated what I was intending to do and employed their new jedi mind tricks to de-rank me. I'll see what tommorow brings.
have a good one.
-
This is because you've canonicalised all pages that come from that page.
E.G.
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
This is telling Google to look at your pages but if possible index ONLY the cat-page1 as you've recommended it in your canonical tag. If you want the other pages to rank you're going to have to remove the canonical tag.
You could also change the canonical tag to:
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page2.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page3.html
This will enable you to add any variable you wish on the end (if you need to) without duplicating the content on a different URL in Google's eyes.
For a test try just changing the canonical tag on the 2nd category page and see what happens.
Hope this helps
DD
-
Hi
All 100 image links on each category page are unique that each point to their respective unique pages. The only thing, is that as new image links get added to the top it can push older content onto page 2,3,4 etc. So I would say each category page is unique.
This isn't what I wanted, I've left it for so long (over a year). It's ever since google introduced that parameter thing, I used to have parameters in the urls but I've fixed that along time ago to .html pages.
Yes the pages on category page 2,3,4 etc used to rank before, but now the 2nd and subsequent pages aren't in the index. In fact if you google the 2nd, third or 4th category pages it brings up the first category page.
thanks
-
Hey,
So you've set it up so that only your first category page will be indexed as it basically saying all the other pages (pg 2, 3 etc) are the same/maybe slightly different.
Is this what you wanted? Also, did those pg 2 and so on rank before you implemented the canonical tag?
DD
-
Hi
on each subsequent category page it refers to the first category page
eg
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
etc
thanks
-
Hmm... let me clarify this you say:
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
what about the each subsequent page (... | 2 | 3 | 4... ) what is their canonical value?
-
Hi
So should I revert to the non canonical page structure and leave it natural?
I also forgot to mention that on the homepage I have a box of recent image links that will also appear on the each of category pages. I don't know if google sees these as duplicate links.
thanks
-
I have noticed exactly the same behavior by Google. They're trying to promote the end page, not the category - even when this is not useful (I think they have a bit of work to do still). If this was my site through I would not tamper with the natural structure of the site but feature key products and pages from pages higher up in the site's hierarchy.
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
-
Home page vs inner page?
do you believe that the advantage of targeting a search term on the home page is now worse off than before? as I understand it ctr is a big factor now And as far as i can see if two pages are equal on page etc the better ctr will win out, the issue with the home page is the serp stars cannot be used hence the ctr on a product page will be higher? I feel if you where able to get a home page up quicker (1 year instead of two) you still lost out in the end due to the product page winning on ctr? do you think this is correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Redirecting homepage to internal page (2nd Tier page)
We are planning to experiment redirecting our homepage to one of the 2nd tier page. I mean....example.com to example.com/page. We need this page to rank well, but it doesn't have much internal links or external back-links, so we opt for this redirect. Advantage with this page is, it has "keyword" we want to rank for in URL. "page" in example.com/page. Will this help or hurt us in SEO? I think we are missing keyword in our root domain, so interested to highlight this page. Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
WordPress – parent category "blog" instead of regular "post page"?
In WordPress you normally show you blog posts on: Your home page. Your "posts page" (configurable in the Reading Settings) I want to do neither and have a third option instead: Assign a parent category called "blog" for all posts, and show the latest posts on that category's archive page. For the readers, the experience will be 100% the same as a regular "posts page". The UI, permalinks, and breadcrumbs will be 100% the same. But, I have heard that the "posts page" is important for Google for indexing and understanding your blog. So is is smarter SEO-wise to use a "posts page" instead of a parent category named "blog"? What negative effects might there be, if I have no "posts page" and just use the parent category "blog" instead?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikolasB0 -
Duplicate Content Errors new website. How do you know which page to put the rel canonical tag on?
I am having problems with duplicate content. This is a new website and all the pages have the same page and domain rank, the following is an example of the homepage. How do you know which page to use the canonical tag on? http://medresourcesupply.com/index.php http://medresourcesupply.com/ Would this be the correct way to use this? Here is another example where Moz says these are duplicates. I can't figure out why because they have different url's and content. http://medresourcesupply.com/clutching_at_the_throat http://medresourcesupply.com/index.php?src=gendocs&ref=detailed_specfications &category=Main
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | artscube.biz0 -
Big discrepancies between pages in Google's index and pages in sitemap
Hi, I'm noticing a huge difference in the number of pages in Googles index (using 'site:' search) versus the number of pages indexed by Google in Webmaster tools. (ie 20,600 in 'site:' search vs 5,100 submitted via the dynamic sitemap.) Anyone know possible causes for this and how i can fix? It's an ecommerce site but i can't see any issues with duplicate content - they employ a very good canonical tag strategy. Could it be that Google has decided to ignore the canonical tag? Any help appreciated, Karen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digirank0 -
Canonicals for product pages - confused, anyone help?
I have an ecommerce website (built using Magento), and have just had the functionality extended to allow me to define my own canonical URLs. Currently the URLs are www. domainname.com/product-name.html but I can now change this to www.domainname. com/product-category/product-name.html. I was led to believe that this would be good for SEO. However, I have since had conflicting advice - it's been suggested that any links across the website that link to domain/category/sub-category/product will pass weight and authority through to the specified canonical anyway. Plus longer URLs are generally worse... I'm confused. Is it worth changing them? If so, would it be a bad thing to change all 700 canonical URLs at once?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Coraltoes770 -
Pricing Page vs. No Pricing Page
There are many SEO sites out there that have an SEO Pricing page, IMO this is BS. A SEO company cannot give every person the same quote for diffirent keywords. However, this is something we are currently debating. I don't want a pricing page, because it's a page full of lies. My coworker thinks it is a good idea, and that users look for a pricing page. Suggestions? If I had to build one (which I am debating against) is it better to just explain why pricing can be tricky? or to BS them like most sites do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
Can I Use Cross Domain Canonical For Duplicate Categories & Product Pages?
I want to fix issue regarding duplicate categories & product pages on my multiple eCommerce websites. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas-fiberbuilt-umbrellas-llc-7gcrw-teal.html - Want to rank with this... http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/patio-umbrellas-fiberbuilt-umbrellas-llc-7gcrw-teal.html - Duplicate one! http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas - Want to rank with this... http://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/patio-umbrellas - Duplicate one!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0