What is the proper syntax for rel="canonical" ??

[danatanseo]

I believe the proper syntax is like this [taken from the SEOMoz homepage]:

However,

one of the sites I am working on has all of their canonical tags set up like this:

I should clarify, not all of their canonicals are identical to this one, they simply use this naming convention, which appears to be relative URLs instead of absolute.

Doesn't the entire URL need to be in the tag?  If that is correct, can you also provide me with an explanation that I can give to management please? They hate it when I say "Because I said so!" LOL

[danatanseo]

Thanks Dr. Pete! An you know what? You are absolutely right. Google has interpreted the canonical just that way and it's been in our GWT reports forever and no one could figure out where they were coming from.

Thank you, thank you, thank you (in my Gomer Pyle voice, of course!)

Wow, it's amazing how fixing one thing can sometimes take you down a whole nother road and fix something else at the same time. I just can't thank both you and George enough.

Kudos to George on a great answer.

[Dr-Pete]

Endorsing George for the full thread. Technically, Google does allow relative URLs, but I've heard of some odd issues, so I think it's better to use full URLs. Your home-page version isn't really either an absolute or relative URL - you really should have the "http://" (protocol) in that URL. If you're being nitpicky, that's an improper URL, and Google could end up interpreting it as something like:

http://www.ccisolutions.com/www.ccisolutions.com

Now, odds are, they won't, but with these tags it's really best to do it by the book.

[GeorgeAndrews]

No problem, glad to help!

[danatanseo]

Agreed. I think if we can change the Storefront to storefront without having to employ any kinds of redirects it would be great. Otherwise, the site is so old, that it may not matter.

Along those lines, we recently had the opportunity to remove /Storefront from the URL string. We chose not to because the site is 10 years old and didn't want to risk losing any page or domain authority by having a whole bunch of 301 redirects.

Certainly interested to know your take from the viewpoint of someone who knows code. Thanks George!

[GeorgeAndrews]

Yes, you are correct. But only if you have a base link in the document:

<base href="http://www.ccisolutions.com/">

This is a very good example for why you may want to stick to Absolute URLs. With an absolute URL you only need to know the actual URL of the page:

Hopefully I'm not adding even more to the fire, but now might be a good time to change "StoreFront" to "storefront" all lowercase. I think lowercase URLs are better if you can use them.

[danatanseo]

Thanks so very much George for your thorough answer. This is exactly what I needed know, and it makes it possible for me to explain it to the CEO. It appears we have a confusing mixture of absolute and relative URLs, that need to be sorted out. I think sticking with the absolutes will makes it much easier.

While we have this on the home page:

This is an example of a category page canonical tag:

Would I be correct is saying that there is a problem here because the actual URL of the page is

http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/wireless-microphones

So if we are going to use the relative URL in our canonical tag, it should be:

Is that correct?

[GeorgeAndrews]

Also just to clarify, when you state they are using "relative" URLs, are you talking about "www.ccisolutions.com/page1.html" vs. "http://www.ccisoultions.com/page1.html"?

If this is true, then both versions are absolute URLs. A relative URL is different. Here are a few examples of relative URLs:

page1.html

/products/page1.html

../products/page1.html

../images/image1.jpg

/images/image1.jpg

image1.jpg

Each of the above are "relative links". Absolute links look like the following and don't necessarily need the "http://":

www.ccisolutions.com/products/page1.html

http://www.ccisolutions.com/products/page1.html

www.ccisolutions.com/images/image1.jpg

http://www.ccisolutions.com/images/image1.jpg

Hope this helps too.

[GeorgeAndrews]

Document refers to the single web page you are placing the canonical link on.

The base link is referring to the URL you can provide as the href property for the base tag. The base tag can be included in the head of your HTML document.

Example base link:

<base href="http://www.ccisolutions.com/">

If you choose to use the example base link above and this relative URL:

Your canonical link will end up referring to “http://www.ccisolutions.com/page1.html”.

Here is a second example, this time using a new base link which includes the products directory:

<base href="http://www.ccisolutions.com/products/">

If you choose to use this new base link and the following relative URL:

Your canonical link will end up referring to “http://www.ccisolutions.com/products/page1.html”.

If you choose to use this new base link and this relative URL:

Your canonical link will actually refer to one-level-up from your base link or “http://www.ccisolutions.com/page1.html”. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the syntax "../" (dot dot slash), but it means to go up one level from the current directory.

The use of base links for canonical linking might be useful for a CMS where the content is generally dynamically created. It might be good to sit down with your developers and discuss which tactic would be best for the site in question.

I am including a link to this SEOmoz blog post in case it is also of help.

Edit: expanded on the explanations...

[danatanseo]

Thanks George. Can you help me with what this means on a large site "

If your document specifies a base link, any relative links

will be relative to that base link."  ?  Does "document" refer to the entire site, or a single Web page?  Thanks!

[GeorgeAndrews]

Hello Dana,

I suggest reading this over: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

Midway down the page, Google states:

Can the link be relative or absolute?

rel="canonical" can be used with relative or absolute links, but we

recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or

difficulties. If your document specifies a base link, any relative links

will be relative to that base link.

Hope this helps!