Canonical Tag Uses Source Title and Meta Data?
-
When optimising a regional same language micro site within a sub folder of a .com it dawned on me that our use of the hreflang and canonical meta elements will render individual elements such as H1 and title obsolete.
As a canonical tag takes the canonical source title and meta right?
It would still have value in optimising localised headings though?
Appreciate any thoughts, suggestions (o:
-
This is a really complex topic and a special case of the canonical tag.. It also doesn't help that Google keeps adjusting their advice. See this thread:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
"When Google discovers a cluster of pages with a single canonical URL, our algorithms will use the title and snippet from the canonical version in our search results. Therefore, it's a good idea not to include region-specific content in the title and meta description tags of the canonical URL. For example, use "Example Widget Inc" instead of "Example Widget USA Inc" or "Example Widget UK"."
So, what about the non-canonical pages? Well, the implication is that, if you use hreflang AND canonical, you'll avoid dupe content problems but the proper pages may rank in the proper regions, even with the canonical tag. In that case, you'd want to include regional variations in the non-canonical META data (for regional searchers). Unfortunately, I haven't seen good data on this yet.
Like Istvan, my gut reaction is to try hreflang first, without the canonical, IF you're not having duplicate content issues or seeing regional variations cross over into inappropriate regions. If you are seeing that, then you'll probably need both.
-
Use only the Hreflang instead of hrefland+canonical combo.
-
This is what we have done, as there are multiple languages and multiple countries.
We are going to use HREFLANG and Canonical, but doesn't this combination mean that titles and meta description from the canonical url is used on each of the duplicated regional sites?
-
Ok,
let's say example.com/us/ is targeted to US and example.com/uk/ is targeted to UK.
If you put a canonical on both that targets to other one, one of them will disappear from Google Index.
What you can do is use only the HREFLANG attribute. And use that to target en-US and en-GB as languages. Maybe that can boost it a little-bit.
I hope that helped,
Istvan
-
I understand what both do, but thanks for the clarification.
I am wondering if when using the canonical to group same language micro-sites say English American and UK the heading elements are localised say:
English title / meta contains : "specialist organisation"
English American title / meta contains: "specialty organization"
Would the cannonical source (the american version) be shown to a UK audience?
Just pondering is all, thanks again Istvan.
-
Hi Wvicary,
I think you miss-understood the canonical tag usage.
After applying the canonical to a page you choose which version of the page will be included in the search index.
For example: you have:
if in the index file you insert the canonical tag, which points to example.com then example.com/index.html will be excluded from the search results.
now HREFLANG: what id does is creates a connection between same content in different languages. For example you have the domain: www.example.com and have three main languages: EN, NL and DE. and you choose to have three different sub-folders for each:
inserting in the header the HREFLANG attribute will help the secondary languages gain reputation and not for localization.
Read through John Doherty's article. He tested quite well the HREFLANG.
Here is the article: http://www.johnfdoherty.com/hreflang-markup-testing/
I hope this helped,
Istvan
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
-
Changing Canonical Tags on Indexed Pages that are Ranking Well
Hi Guys, I recently rolled out a domain wide canonical tag change. Previously the website had canonical tags without the www, however the website was setup to redirect to www on page load. I noticed that the site competitors were all using www and as far as I understand www versus non www, it's based on preference. In order to keep things consistent, I changed the canonical tag to include the www. Will the site drop in rankings? Especially if the pages are starting to rank quite well. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | QuickToImpress0 -
Problems with Squarespace Title Tags
Hi All, I'm having problems editing the title tags on individual pages on Squarespace. It seems the only way to do it is via the page title name. Here is an example: http://www.autismsees.com/research/. The page is called research, so it makes that the meta title. The problem is I want to keep research on the page and the Meta Title be: Autism Spectrum Research. I'v tried searching over the web, but no luck so far. Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterRota0 -
How do I change HTML title, and add H1 tags with Volusion? and why is it so hard!?!?! wordpress is WAYY better.
So I could go in depth with this and tell you all about the problems I have encountered with Volusion... but i'm not. I just need to help a client change the 7,000 product pages they have that have duplicated title tags, and no H1 tags. (probably one of the worst case of On-Page SEO set ups ever right? Shouldn't Volusion be built to help you do these types of essentials easily? Or (for the price) even better would be to do it automatically based on the product name??)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Which search engines still use Meta Keywords?
I know Google doesn't use meta keywords in meta tags, but i was wondering if there are other smaller search engines that still do? Id it worth it to add meta keywords for them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Scanning For Duplicate Canonical Tags
I'm looking for a solution for identifying pages on a site that have either empty/undefined canonical tags, or duplicate canonical tags (meaning the tag occurs twice within the same page). I've used Screaming Frog to view sitewide canonical values, but the tool cannot identify when pages use the tag twice, nor can it differentiate between pages that have an empty canonical tag and pages that have no canonical tag at all. Any help finding a tool of some sort that can assist me in doing this would be much appreciated, as I'm working with tens of thousands of pages and can't do this manually.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edmundsseo0 -
Adding Meta Languange tag to xhtml site - coding help needed
I've had my site dinged by Google and feel it's likely several quality issues and I'm hunting down these issues. One of Bing's Webmaster SEO tools said my xhtml pages (which were built in 2007) are missing Meta Language and suggested adding tag in the or on the html tag. Wanting to "not mess anything up" and validate correctly, I read in **W3C's site and it said: ** "Always add a lang attribute to the html tag to set the default language of your page. If this is XHTML 1.x you should also use the xml:lang attribute (with the same value). Do not use the meta element with http-equiv set to Content-Language." My current html leads like: QUESTION:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mlm12
I'm confused on how to add the Meta Language to my website given my current coding as I"m not a coder. Can you suggest if I should add this content-language info, and if so, what is the best way to do so, considering valid w3c markup for my document type? Thank you!!!
Michelle0 -
Original Source and Canonical tags
We've been using canonical links to protect site SEO for contributor content and requiring canonical of our partners (as well as tagging internal duplicate content with canonical). Most other media sites have been doing the same but this is a moving target. I'm now hearing that the original source tag is now a better option. Special focus for us is placement on google news. Any guidance?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jbertfield0 -
301 Redirect or Canonical Tag or Leave Them Alone? Different Pages - Similar Content
We currently have 3 different versions of our State Business-for-Sale listings pages - the versions are: **Version 1 -- Preferred Version: ** http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx Title = California Business for Sale Ads - California Businesses for Sale & Business Brokers - Sell a Business on Business Broker Version 2: http://www.businessbroker.net/Businesses_For_Sale-State-California.aspx Title = California Business for Sale | 3124 California Businesses for Sale | BusinessBroker.net Version 3: http://www.businessbroker.net/listings/business_for_sale_california.ihtml Title = California Businesses for Sale at BusinessBroker.net - California Business for Sale While the page titles and meta data are a bit different, the bulk of the page content (which is the listings rendered) are identical. We were wondering if it would make good sense to either (A) 301 redirect Versions 2 and 3 to the preferred Version 1 page or (B) put Canonical Tags on Versions 2 and 3 labeling Version 1 as the preferred version. We have this issue for all 50 U.S. States -- I've mentioned California here but the same applies for Alabama through Wyoming - same issue. Given that there are 3 different flavors and all are showing up in the Search Results -- some on the same 1st page of results -- which probably is a good thing for now -- should we do a 301 redirect or a Canonical Tag on Versions 2 and 3? Seems like with Google cracking down on duplicate content, it might be wise to be proactive. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. Matt M
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MWM37720