What is Canonical URL Tag
-
What is Canonical URL Tag?
-
Not a problem! If you come across any other problems, let me know, I'd love to help!
-
Yes it does thank you. When I run the campaign it says I have two on some pages and I need to remove them. ( I am using WordPress so I assume this was an automatic tag it added - odd) So I will try and remove it and see what happens at next crawl. THANKS
-
Simply put, it's a tag that solves a problem.
Problem: Dynamic web pages get into trouble with duplicate content - Google will see a completely different page if the URL is changed in any way.
For instance, Google sees these as two different sites:
Just the trailing / will make Google index the page twice - which required much more resources to index all of that duplicate content.
So, the rel="canonical" tag exists to tell Google which version of the content to index - thus enabling less duplicate content.
All you need to do is add the rel="canonical" tag before the tag of your website, and you're good to go!
Does this help explain it?
-
here's a great post from SEOmoz about it: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not
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
-
URL Parameters to Ignore
Hi Mozers, **We have a glossary of terms made up of a main page that lists out ALL of the terms, and then individual pages per alphabet letter that limit the results to that specific alphabet letter. These pages look like this: ** https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=A https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=B https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=C https://www.XXXX.XXX/publications/dictionaries/XXX-terms?expand=D etc. If I'd like Google to remove all of these "expand=" pages from the index, such that only the main page is indexed, what is the exact parameter that I should ask Google to ignore in Search Console? "expand=" ? Just want to make sure! Thanks for the help!!!
Technical SEO | | yaelslater1 -
Removing a canonical tag from Pagination pages
Hello, Currently on our site we have the rel=prev/next markup for pagination along with a self pointing canonical via the Yoast Plugin. However, on page 2 of our paginated series, (there's only 2 pages currently), the canonical points to page one, rather than page 2. My understanding is that if you use a canonical on paginated pages it should point to a viewall page as opposed to page one. I also believe that you don't need to use both a canonical and the rel=prev/next markup, one or the other will do. As we use the markup I wanted to get rid of the canonical, would this be correct? For those who use the Yoast Plugin have you managed to get that to work? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jessicarcf0 -
Parked former company's url on top of my existing url and that URL is showing in SERPs for my top keywords
I have the URL from my former company parked on top of my existing URL. My top keywords are showing up with the old URL attached to the metadsecription of my existing URL. It was supposed to be 301 redirected instead of parked but my web developer insists this was the right way to do it and it will work itself out after google indexes the old URL out of existence. Are there any other options?
Technical SEO | | Joelabarre0 -
Canonical Expert question!
Hello, I am looking for some help here with an estate agent property web site. I recently finished the MoZ crawling report and noticed that MoZ sees some pages as duplicate, mainly from pages which list properties as page 1,2,3 etc. Here is an example: http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses?page=2
Technical SEO | | artdivision
http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses?page=3 etc etc Now I know that the best practise says I should set a canonical url to this page:
http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses?page=all but here is where my problem is. http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses?page=1 contains good written content (around 750 words) before the listed properties are displayed while the "page=all" page do not have that content, only the properties listed. Also http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses?page=1 is similar with the originally designed landing page http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses I would like yoru advise as to what is the best way to can url this and sort the problem. My original thoughts were to can=url to this page http://www.xxxxxxxxx.com/property-for-rent/london/houses instead of the "page=all" version but your opinion will be highly appreciated.0 -
Showing duplicate content when I have canonical url set, why?
Just inspecting my sites report and I see that I have a lot of duplicate content issues, not sure why these two pages here http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/small-wholesale-patches-1/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch are showing as duplicate content when both pages have a clearly defined canonical url of http://www.thecheapplace.com/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch Any answer would be appreciated, thank you
Technical SEO | | erhansimavi0 -
Title tag code
Hi, I have a couple of websites where I can't define the title tag (CMS does not support it) on a few default pages. On these pages "the system" just uses the primary/main title tag (from the frontpage) and my programming skills (as if I have any...!) have not been able to make a html code or something to override the main title tag on these specific pages. Does this make sense at all and can anyone give me a hint, a code to try out or something? Problem is that I now have 3 pages with the same title tag which in terms of SEO isn't too good, so to say... Thanks in advance. Jan
Technical SEO | | Wello12340 -
Duplicate title tags and meta description tags
According to GWT, it seems that some of the pages on my website have duplicate title and meta tags. The pages identified by Google are nothing but dynamic pages: http://www.mywebsite.com/page.php
Technical SEO | | sbrault74
http://www.mywebsite.com/page.php?param=1
http://www.mywebsite.com/page.php?param=2 The thing is that I do use the canonical link tag on all pages. Should I also use the "robots noindex" tag when the page is invoked using a GET parameter? Again sorry for my english. Thank you, Stephane1 -
Is the full URL necessary for successful Canonical Links?
Hi, my first question and hopefully an easy enough one to answer. Currently in the head element of our pages we have canonical references such as: (Yes, untidy URL...we are working on it!) I am just trying to find out whether this snippet of the full URL is adequete for canonicalization or if the full domain is needed aswell. My reason for asking is that the SEOmoz On-Page Optimization grading tool is 'failing' all our pages on the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value. I have been unable to find a definitive answer on this, although admittedly most examples do use the full URL. (I am not the site developer so cannot simply change this myself, but rather have to advise him in a weekly meeting). So in short, presumably using the full URL is best practise, but is it essential to its effectiveness when being read by the search engines? Or could there be another reason why the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value is not being green ticked? Thank you very much, I appreciate any advice you can give.
Technical SEO | | rmkjersey0