Rel Canonical tag usage on ECommerce website
-
Hello,
I have read up on the rel canonical tag and I'm ready to apply it to my site's categorization structure.
However, I'm concerned that, because my website does not have a "view all" button for our product pages, the rel canonical tag would not be appropriate.
For example, if you come to my site's main category url, you come to
At this level - you get the top 12 items in the category.
if you want to see the next page, you click a crawlable link that goes to
etc. etc.
The site does not offer a view all function.
Would applying the rel canonical tag be appropriate in this instance, or do I have to let Google crawl and index each page independantly?
Thanks.
-
Thanks! I understand what you're saying and I agree...this is exactly the method that our CMS generates these pages. The crawlable, additional pages are unique and should be crawled. This being said, from a search engine's perspective, the obvious "canonicalized" page should be the main category. I believe the robots, no index/follow is the best option for me - though I'm not exactly sure how to implement it with our CMS system..
Thanks.
-
Thanks!
Hadn't considered the robots tag like this. Unfortunately, our site's CMS system will make either of these options tough to actually implement. But it's great to know there're some options.
-
Technically, rel=prev/next is more appropriate, but it can be really tough to implement and Bing doesn't honor it.
If the paginated search pages don't have inbound links, you could just use META NOINDEX,FOLLOW on them (pages 2, 3, etc.). It's a lot easier to implement and is still very effective.
-
**if you want to see the next page, you click a crawlable link that goes to **
**mysite.com/main-category12-24 **
**The site does not offer a view all function. **
Would applying the rel canonical tag be appropriate in this instance, or do I have to let Google crawl and index each page independantly?
In this example you actually are talking about 2 different pages and in which case it can be appropriate to use the rel canonical.
Example take a look at a popular plateform like Oscommerce.
The Index.php page generates the following pages
- index.php
- category pages
- sub category pages
These are referenced by the software by the cPath (category Path) and would look much like this
- index.php
- index.php&cPath=1
- index.php&cPath=1_5
To a search engine these are all unique pages. Additionally, since many e-commerce platforms follow this type of module but also have ways to make the pages more SEO friendly you can in some cases access the same page via different URL's which is of course bad, due to duplicate content. In these case a rel canonical is very appropriate.
For example Oscommerce has a SEO friendly URL modification which turns the unspecific URL like index.php&cPath=1 into something like electronics.html However unless some sort of redirect is used you can actually access this page via either URL.
To simplify the answer the rel canonical tag is most appropriate for pages that generate dynamic URL's but content changes very little. In my examples above the pages are very different index.php and a index.php&cPath=1 page, however there can be times when you have interactions on those pages which would create a new url like say adding a product to the cart or a product selection filter, or any score of interactions that may change the url from index.php&cPath=1 to index.php&cPath=1&addToCart1&Product_ID=414&return in this case rel canonical would be very much appropriate as the page is not really changing you're just executing an action.
-
Here's an article from Google webmaster central with instructions on how to impliment it.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
And a quick example of implimentation by Yoast for 'Page 2' of results.
http://yoast.com/rel-next-prev-paginated-archives/
Just a quick note, on 'page 1' there should be no rel=prev (your mysite.com/main-category in this case) On on the final page there should be no rel=next. All other pages should have both.
Hope these help.
-
Wow, thanks alot I hadn't heard this was even available. Any chance you could give me a link to where I could find info. to implement?
Thanks again for your help, either way!
-
I'd impliment rel=rev and rel=next on the pages to imply that their paginated, with the first page mentioned being the first in the chain.
rel=canonical then should point to the actual url, not the view-all page.
I think that is the 'correct' implimention for paginated content since rel=prev and rel=next were introduced.
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
-
How to check if the website has duplicate content?
I've been working with the websites from couple of months and it was always in my mind if there could be a legit way to find if the website have a duplicate content. I've tried couple of websites through google but nothing worked for me. It would be much appreciated if anyone can help. Thanks
Web Design | | rajveer_singh0 -
New Website
With all the changes in web design, I feel it best to seek advice from my fellow Mozzers. We are definitely going with a custom design and I know it MUST be responsive and faster load speed than we currently employ. What other requirements should I seek from our designer? Approximately 50 product pages w/ ECWID shopping cart holding a dozen or less products. TY,
Web Design | | KevnJr
KJr0 -
Does anyone have data on the effect of multiple H1 tags on a page?
One of my website's sub-domains is fed information from a job board master-template, thus my site (and hundreds of other sites) is just branded styling pulling from one external source. Because of the way this master template is set up (not very concerned with SEO best practices), I have found the need to hide the H1 coming from the master template, and display a new separate H1 in my styling. This is being done with user-experience in mind, but how will search engines respond to having two H1s (one hidden, one visible) on a page? I understand that a single H1 is usually ideal, and hidden page components are typically frowned upon because they don't add user value... but in this case, the hidden component is solely for the benefit of the user. I would like to find the best balance of SEO and UX, so I am very interested in any experimental data or case studies on a similar situation.
Web Design | | pbailey0 -
Help with Schema.org on Ecommerce Products
I’m looking for ways of using schema.org with products that have pricing options. There appear to be two main problems 1) Whilst colour, width, height and depth are all catered for, size appears to be missing – how can we mark up products that are available in sizes that aren’t necessarily covered by width/height/depth (e.g. shoe size). Also, what if the product is available in different finishes – technically, these could not properly be described as colours so how could we mark them up? 2) There doesn’t seem to be any particularly good way of marking up pricing options that are displayed on the same product detail page. For e.g. if a pricing option table is used like this: | ID | Colour | Price 001-red | Red | £3.99 001-green | Green | £4.49 001-blue | Blue | £4.99 | I can mark up each row as an offer, and give each offer a price and sku or mpn, but then I can’t use itemprop=”color” to describe exactly what the option is. Would I just use itemprop=”name” in this case and abandon color altogether (even though it’s technically supposed to be describing the colour of the product and not the name of the offer)? I suppose another way I could approach it would be to mark up each row as an individual product, and assign each one an offer with the details as described above but then the containing page would effectively look like a separate product – which it isn’t. Any help or advice on this would be very much appreciated
Web Design | | paulbaguley0 -
Best Practice For Website Redesign & Migration
Hi, I'm looking to redesign my current live website to a new Wordpress site using "Studiopress Enterprise Theme". I'm new to Wordpress and therefore will be embarking on lots of testing & development.
Web Design | | Mark_Ch
I do not want to hurt my current live website whilst testing the new Wordpress site. However, it would be nice to bring the test site into the current live environment without changing untold urls, etc. Question
What is the best practice to setup this new Wordpress environment for my domain: www.sampledomain.co.uk How would you restrict Google, Bing, etc from indexing, etc. whilst testing in the live environment. What other consideration should I be aware of Thanks Mark0 -
Geo Tagging Your Website?
Is it worth it to do this to your site if it has a local focus? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Thanks! ~Ricky
Web Design | | RickyShockley0 -
Website URL Structures - Which does Google prefer or does it matter?
Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Websites with only one "html file" and page href # is good for SEO?
I bought one website from templatemonster that contains only one HTML and the pages are generated by links (PROGRAMACAO) My website: www.nextformaturas.com.br This is good in term of SEO? or it is better an website with deveral pages with diferent contents? What are the pros and cons? I really lost on this.
Web Design | | Naghirniac0