Can somebody explain Canonical tags and the technical elements of SEO?
-
Newbie here,and learning fast. But... I can't help but feel the technical elements of SEO (i.e. canonical tags, javascript amongst others) are holding me back. My knowledge of programming and coding is basic at best. Do I have to have an understanding of this to get ahead in SEO or is it simply a case of reading some more and knowing the techniques? What percentage of SEO is technical (e.g. html coding etc...) Thanks in advance. N.
p.s. could someone explain what canonical tags are?
-
It's a bit of a read, but I discuss a lot of on-page tag/tactics in this post, inspired by Panda:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
If you're launching a very large site (like an e-commerce site) with 1000s of products, then a deep knowledge of on-page SEO can be critical. For most sites, though, that grow organically, you can learn as you go. As you start to track your own content and rankings, you'll begin to see what works and what doesn't.
Early on in a site's life, a lot of on-page really just comes down to solid keyword research, a sensible site architecture/structure (navigation and internal links), controlling duplicate URLs, and writing decent TITLE tags. That'll take you a long way in the beginning.
-
There are many, many, great frontpage SEOMoz articles that explain a lot of this stuff. In the abstract I would say that 'strategic' SEO (e.g. overall site structure and planning) does require a grounding in technical issues but that 'tactical' SEO (e.g. per keyword or category content creation) doesn't necessarily, as long as there is a clear understanding of what is to be accomplished and how.
Here's a good article from the Learn SEO series on this site:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization
(The whole Learn SEO section is pretty good)
The short answer is, canonical tags tell search engines what you want the 'real' URL for any set page to be when presenting it as a search result. Consider these URLs, which all theoretically go to the same place:
If search engines treated all of these as 'different' pages, it means that your 'link weight'' or relevance for them would be split 4 times, depending on how many other people linked to them, how you link to them internally, how your sitemap references them, etc. But you don't want that; you want 'one' default page for your site. The canonical tag lets you explicitly specify which of the above should be considered the 'canonical', or original, page.
This has a variety of applications, but these are the most important:
-
Controlling capitalization. Is there a difference between Default.aspx and default.aspx? It's unlikely, but canonicalization can take care of this
-
Reducing search engine confusion for identical pages, as above.
-
Reducing querystring over-indexing of duplicate content. If you can have over 100 iterations of SearchResults.aspx?Start=0&End=100&Sort=Asc, SearchResults.aspx?Start=10&End=110&Sort=Desc, etc. etc. you can canonical them to the original, plain, SearchResults.aspx to help avoid duplicate penalties.
I'm sure there's more, but I'm just writing this off the top of my head.
-
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
-
Doudle URLs without Canonical link and a change in keyword.: What are the effects on SEO?
I built my new website and i have two major worries. 1. My home page has two URLs. The one with a high PA though indexed by Google, is not submitted in the sitemap. I tried to place a canonical tag but the hosting service said it was impossible for me to place the canonical link. My concern is if the indexed page will be successfully optimized for SEO without it being submitted in the sitemap and what happens to the other URL for the same page which is also indexed and submitted in the sitemap? 2.I started my link building campaign for one of my pages. I acquired some good PA already for a particular keyword but later on discovered it will be very difficult for me to rank for the major keyword. I have decided to change the keyword. Will the acquired PA influence the SEO for the new keyword? I wish to know if i should dissolve the links to the page for the former keyword or should i maintain them and move forward with building links for the new keyword as well.
Technical SEO | | trevordocs0 -
Redirecting Canonical Hostnames
Hi, I want to rewrite all the url pages of "site.com" to "www.site.com". I read the moz redirection article and i concluded that this would be the best approach. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.seomoz.org [NC]
Technical SEO | | bigrat95
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.seomoz.org/$1 [L,R=301]. But i recieved this error: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. I tried this rewrite too... RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=301] It worked but it just rewriting my domain** "site.com"** and not all the subs "site.com/fr/example.php" to "www.site.com" Why it doesn't work properly, it seem to be easy... Could it be a hosting problem? Is there another way to do it? <address> </address> <address> </address> <address> </address> <address> </address>0 -
Yoast Local SEO
Hello has anyone had any any issues with the Yoast local plugin not accepting the license when the WP install is in subfolder. Or any license issues with the plugin?
Technical SEO | | edwardfrebow0 -
Canonical Tag on Blog - Roger says it's incorrect?
Hi I have just released a post on my blog and I wanted to check my primary keyword for the post to make sure the page scores well. However when I did the page report it showed the Canonical Rel tag was incorrect. example of link the blog is http://www.example.com/Blog/post-comment/ The Canonical tag is below What am I doing wrong, as it looks correct to me?
Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
H1 Tag.
As far as I know to rank well H1 tag should be present in all pages and it should be one of the first things in the page, it also should include the keywords. I was checking my site and magento generates the H1 with an image, www.theprinterdepo.com I dont know if this is wise? class="logo">The Printer Depo<a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>http://www.theprinterdepo.com/" title="The Printer Depo" class="logo">width="377px" src="https://www.theprinterdepo.com/skin/frontend/default/MAG060062/images/logo.gif" alt="The Printer Depo" />
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
301 or Rel=canonical
Should I use a 301 redirect for redirect mywebsite.com to www.mywebsite.com or use a rel=canonical?? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | LeslieVS0 -
Can I use canonical tags to merge property map pages and availability pages to their counterpart overview pages?
I have a property website, for each property are 4-5 tabs each with their own URL, these pages include the overview page which is content rich, and auxilliary pages such as maps, availability, can I use a canonical tag to merge the tabs with very little content to their corresponding overview page which is content rich? I.e. www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/overview This page has tabs for map, town info, availability which all have their own url i.e. www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/map
Technical SEO | | assertive-media
www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/availability
www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/towninfo Because these auxilary pages do not contain much content can I place a canonical tag in them pointing back to the content rich overview page at www.mywebsite.co.uk/property-1/overview?0 -
We have a ton of legacy links that include /?ref=tracking-goes-here. We need concile this, can the conical tag be used to fix this? How?
www.firehost.com/?ref=pressrelease example - http://cl.ly/2O1d1x2m3b1b3K1K0h2J
Technical SEO | | FirePowered0