Is it a good idea to rel=canonical dozens of old outdated pages?
-
we have dozens old outdated manual pages that still need to be up, but have terrible code issues (they're exported from word) and no image tagging, etc.
there are new pages in place, so should i rel=canonical to the new pages? will this transfer any link juice to the newer, more seo-friendly ones?
-
If there are newer pages in place, and the newer pages cover the same topic, then yes you should canonical the older, outdated pages to the new pages. I would normally suggest to replace these older pages but you shared they "still need to be up" so the canonical tag would be the next best solution.
Using the canonical tag will allow most of the link juice from the older pages to flow to the newer pages.
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
How do I redirect SEO from pages on old website to new website with new domain name?
How do I redirect SEO from pages on old website to new website with new domain name? My website in squarespace has good rankings and we have rebranded to a new name and enw domain name, how do I move across the rankings fomr the old site in squarespace to my new site thats in wordpress please?
On-Page Optimization | | Carrotpower0 -
Canonical home page references - logo link
should a website's logo be linked to the "abc.com/index.html" page or to the "abc.com" domain root? Is one better for the search engine robots?
On-Page Optimization | | mtishman1 -
On-page Optimization empty
My website is new. My On-page Optimization (Reports Updated: 1/2/13) is empty. Is there a problem, I have to wait longer or am I doing something wrong? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | franzneves0 -
Why a page with an On Page A grade has a less good rank than a page with a F grade?
Why a page with an On Page A grade is ranked 17 in Google when the home page with a F grade is ranked 9 ? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Amadeus_eBC0 -
No index parts of a page?
Little bit of an odd question this, but how would one go about getting Google to not index certain content on a page? I'm developing an online store for a client and for a few of the products they will be stocking they will be using the manufacturers specs and descriptions. These descriptions and specs, therefore, will not be unique as they will be also used by a number of other websites. The title tag, onpage h1 etc will be fine for the seo of the actual pages (with backlinks, of course) so the impact of google not counting the description should be slight. I'm sure this can be done but for the life of me I cannot remember how. Thanks Carl
On-Page Optimization | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
"Canonical URL Tag Usage" recommendation in SEOmoz "On-Page Optimization" Tool
Here comes another one related to SEOmoz "On-Page Optimization" Tool. The tool says the following about one of our pages: Canonical URL Tag Usage Explanation: Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to
On-Page Optimization | | gerardoH
use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future
developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe
the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic
today. Recommendation: Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page. Let's say our page is http://www.example.com/brands/abc-brand and on its header we'll place the following tag: Is this correct? I thought the canonical tag was meant for duplicates of the original page, for example: http://www.example.com/brands/print/abc-brand href="http://www.example.com/brands/abc-brand**?SESSID=123** Thanks in advance.0 -
Are hyphens not a good thing in page titles?
I am pretty sure hyphens are looked at as spaces no matter what programming language you are using for text purposes. The On-page Report Card is not counting them as spaces in the page title, therefore, we're not getting the grade for having the keyword in the page title because it's divided by hyphens. Is this a fix that needs to be implemented into the SEOmoz app or should I not have hyphens in the title or does it really not matter? Up for discussion! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | cyberlicious0