Rel Canonical Syntax
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My IT department is getting ready to setup the rel canonical tag, finally. I took a look at the code on our test server and see that they are using a single quote in the tag syntax (see code block below). Should I be concerned? Will Google read those lines the same?
<link rel='canonical' href='[http://www.wholesalecostumeclub.com/easter-costumes/bunny-suits](view-source:http://www.wholesalecostumeclub.com/easter-costumes/bunny-suits)' />VS. **versus** <link rel="canonical" href="[http://www.wholesalecostumeclub.com/easter-costumes/bunny-suits](view-source:http://www.wholesalecostumeclub.com/easter-costumes/bunny-suits)" /> -
To quote W3C draft specification on HTML5
Attributes are placed inside the start tag, and consist of a name and a value, separated by an "
=" character. The attribute value can remain unquoted if it doesn't contain spaces or any of"'```=<or>. Otherwise, it has to be quoted using either single or double quotes. The value, along with the "=" character, can be omitted altogether if the value is the empty string.The accepted convention is " but according to the standard both are supported.
P.S. Is a version of your site live, if so I would maybe like to blog about it as it is related to what we are doing in baby toddler items (looking at your avatar).
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<link rel="canonical" href="<a class="external" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sitename.com/</a>" /> would be correct. Don't forget the double quotes! -
Double quote is the norm in HTML
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I have used it like this and haven't had any issues<link rel="canonical" href=http://www.sitename.com />If you use wordpress - yoast seo plugin - does it the same way.Read this post it will clear your question
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps -
I agree with John... why chance it? It should be a piece of cake for them to set it up with conformity to the standard
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I'm not positive about how they'll deal with it, but why take a chance? It won't be that hard for them to change it from a single to a normal quotation, especially since it's on your test server.
Better safe than sorry.
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