Implementing rel=canonical in a CMS

[brightonseorob]

Hi Guys,

We have an issue with duplicate content caused by dynamic URLs, so want to implement rel=canonical. However this isn't easy due to the way out CMS works.

These were pulled from SEOMoz scan:

http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1&perpage=10&sales_group=NULL&filter_colour=&filter_size=&sortby=RELEV&inStock=NO&resfilter=
and are obviously the same page. As far as I can see I have two options.

1.  To implement the canonical meta tag only on page 1.

2. To implement the canonical tag so that I add ?page=X

so
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
would be
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1

Will this work?

Thanks

Rob

[Dr-Pete]

Ideally, you'd fix the crawl path, but that may be tricky (unless they've patched the CMS). You could add the canonical to just the "page=1" version, but admittedly that's a bit code-intensive.

An alternate idea - that is fairly Google-friendly. You could add a "View All" version and then point the canonical on all search pages to that version. Especially since all is only 2 pages, that could work well in your case and you wouldn't have to worry about all the variants or search results not getting crawled.

[Keszi]

Still I would advice to talk to Sanderson first, because maybe they have met the same issue on several clients.And have developed something to resolve it.

Webmaster tools can be helpful too just as Bede said.

[brightonseorob]

Hi Istvan,

Thanks for your comments. I have contacted Sanderson but as @Bede suggests, I might try and do this in webmaster tools

[brightonseorob]

Hi Bede,

I did think about that a while back, the issue is that we are an ecommerce site, so I don't want to run the risk of excluding page 2,3,4 etc from being crawled. However, I think you might be right - this may have to be the way forward. Currently we have 3165 products and 9495 pages of duplicate content, so it is something I need to get fixed.

Thanks, Rob

[BedeFahey]

Just throwing this out there, but, could rel=canonical be augmented or assisted in this case by URL parameters in webmaster tools?

https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1235687

[Keszi]

@Nicolai: maybe this could be a solution: http://drupal.org/project/nodewords

@Rob: I am searching for a solution. Did you try contacting http://www.sanderson.com regarding this issue?

[MPO]

Hi Istvan,

Thank you very much - take your time It's deeply appreciated.

[Keszi]

Hi Nicolai,

More than possible in the evening I will have more time to check things. I will look for both Drupal and Elucid solutions.

Gr.,

Istvan

[MPO]

Hi Rob / Istvan,

@ Rob, I hope you don't mind that I "steal" your thread, that's not my intention. I have what seems to be the exact same problem as you (as described in this threat), and I can't seem to find a solution for it.

@Istvan - my CMS is Drupal, and I guess I have the exact same problem as Rob(?).

Again guys: Apologies for staling this thread, I hope it's ok. I just saw it and was very happy to find not only the question written by Rob, but also someone who seems to have an idea of what to do about it.

Thanks in advance, and good day both of you.

Nicolai

[Keszi]

Hi Rob,

I will check and get back to you in a few hours.

Hopefully we'll find something for you

Gr.,

Istvan

[brightonseorob]

Hi Istvan,

It is a system called Elucid from Sanderson. It is basically a multi-channel platform. The problem content all run off the same template, which is the issue.

Thanks

[Keszi]

Hi Rob,

What CMS are you using? Maybe we could link a few very good plugins which will help you out with this situation.

Gr.,

Istvan