Job/Blog Pages and rel=canonical
-
Hi,
I know there are several questions and articles concerning the rel=canonical on SEOmoz, but I didn't find the answer I was looking for...
We have some job pages, URLs are: /jobs and then jobs/2, jobs/3 etc..
Our blog pages follow the same: /blog, /blog2, /blog/3...
Our CMS is self-produced, and every job/blog-page has the same title tag. According to SEOmoz (and the Webmaster Tools), we have a lots of duplicate title tags because of this problem.
If we put the rel=canonical on each page's source code, the title tag problem will be solved for google, right? Because they will just display the /job and /blog main page. That would be great because we dont want 40 blog pages in the index.
My concern (a stupid question, but I am not sure): if we put the rel=canonical on the pages, does google crawl them and index our job links? We want to keep our rankings for our job offers on pages 2-xxx.
More simple: will we find our job offers on jobs/2, jobs/3... in google, if these pages have the rel=canonical on them?
AND ONE MORE: does the SEOmoz bot also follow the rel=canonical and then reduce the number of duplicate title-tags in the campaigns???
Thanx........
-
Hi,
First off, even with a canonical, I'd suggest you have a unique title tag if for no other reason than users. Changing the title, even slightly, can help. For my clients, I usually suggest something simple like adding ", Page #2" after the main title. Google may or may not index the page, but that way if a user bookmarks the page (or shares it), the title is different.
Second, you need more than a canonical link to correct this problem. You are dealing with a sequence, which means you need to use rel prev/next as well as the canonical. (For example: on page 2 of your jobs, the canonical would be /jobs/2, the rel prev would be /jobs, and rel next would be /jobs/3.) Treating these pages like a sequence will help explain this group of pages more effectively. And, that means...
Finally, the rel prev/next would also help those second, third, fourth, etc. pages from falling out of Google's index and allow Google to find those jobs listed on those subsequent pages. Instead of telling Google that the subsequent pages are duplications (which is what you are saying by having a canonical referencing the main page on each subsequent page), you instead would be saying that these pages are grouped together as a sequence making it acceptable for Google to crawl through those pages.
I hope that helps. Also, I'm not sure how SEOmoz handles the canonical in regards to duplicate content.
Thanks.
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
-
Delete old blog posts after 301 redirects to new pages?
Hi Moz Community, I've recently created several new pages on my site using much of the same copy from blog posts on the same topics (we did this for design flexibility and a few other reasons). The blogs and pages aren't exactly identical, as the new pages have much more content, but I don't think there's a point to having both and I don't want to have duplicate content, so we've used 301 redirects from the old blog posts to the new pages of the same topic. My question is: can I go ahead and delete the old blog posts? (Or would there be any reasons I shouldn't delete them?) I'm guessing with the 301 redirects, all will be well in the world and I can just delete the old posts, but I wanted to triple check to make sure. Thanks so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
Technical SEO | | TaraLP1 -
Should i noindex/nofollow a faceted navigation page?
I have an ecommerce website with 4 departments, that share the same categories, For example a bicycle shop would have different products for mountain biking and road cycling, but they would both share the same 'tyres' category. I get around this by having the department as a filter, that changes the products on show, and adds a URL parameter of ?department=1. When this filter is applied, i have a canonical link setup to the non-filtered category. Any filter links are nofollowed. My top menu has 4 different sections, one for each department, and links to these URLs with the department parameter already on, these links are set to allow robots to follow. As i am actively pointing Google at these pages, and it is my main navigation, should the page they go to be noindexed? As its the canonical i want to rank. Hopefully this makes sense. Cheers
Technical SEO | | SEOhmygod0 -
How to resolve warning of pages with redirect chain when its your http:// to https://www.
how do I write a 301 redirect in the htaccess file so that http:// goes straight to https://www. Moz replyEli profileHey there!Thanks for reaching out to us!
Technical SEO | | VelocityWebsites0 -
Do Collections in Shopify create Duplicate Pages according to Google/Bing/Yahoo?
I'm using the e-commerce platform Shopify to host an e-store. We've put our products into different collections. Shopify automatically creates different URL paths to a product in multiple collections. I'm worried that the same product listed in different collections is soon as different pages, and therefore duplicate content by Google/Bing/Yahoo. Would love to get your opinion on this concern! Thanks! Matthew
Technical SEO | | HappinessDigital0 -
2 links on home page to each category page ..... is page rank being watered down?
I am working on a site that has a home page containing 2 links to each category page. One of the links is a text link and one link is an image link. I think I'm right in thinking that Google will only pay attention to the anchor text/alt text of the first link that it spiders with the anchor text/alt text of the second being ignored. This is not my question however. My question is about the page rank that is passed to each category page..... Because of the double links on the home page, my reckoning is that PR is being divided up twice as many times as necessary. Am I also right in thinking that if Google ignore the 2nd identical link on a page only one lot of this divided up PR will be passed to each category page rather than 2 lots ..... hence horribly watering down the 'link juice' that is being passed to each category page?? Please help me win this argument with a developer and improve the ranking potential of the category pages on the site 🙂
Technical SEO | | QubaSEO0 -
Blog Categories or Static Pages
Background: We're creating a site that for a service provider on a wordpress platform, and it will include a blog with a page for each service category. Let's say the client is a wedding photographer we'd create a page for studio portraits, events, wedding, newborns, family etc. Question: Should each category page be a stand-alone page or a blog category? As a blog category it will be updated with new content continually and automatically. However, it could cause duplicate content issues as well as keyword dilution. Research: I've done research and obviously there are conflicting opinions - skip categories altogether, categories bring traffic, problems & solutions. I'm hoping for your opinion on the matter, or direction to content on the issue that will be helpful. Blog categories yay or nay?
Technical SEO | | 5225Marketing0 -
Rel - canonical vs 301 redirect
I have multiple product pages on my site - what is better for rankings in your experiance? If I 301 the pages to 1 correct version of the product page - or if I rel caanonical to the one correct page?
Technical SEO | | DavidS-2820610 -
Is having "rel=canonical" on the same page it is pointing to going to hurt search?
i like the rel=canonical tag and i've seen matt cutts posts on google about this tag. for the site i'm working on, it's a great workaround because we often have two identical or nearly identical versions of pages: 1 for patients, 1 for doctors. the problem is this: the way our content management system is set up, certain pages are linked up in a number of places and when we publish, two different versions of the page are created, but same content. because they are both being made from the same content templates, if i put in the rel=canonical tag, both pages get it. so, if i have: http://www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp and http://www.myhospital.com/professional-condition.asp and they are both produced from the same template, and have the same content, and i'm trying to point search at http://www.myhospital.com/patient-condition.asp, but that tag appears on both pages similarly, we have various forms and we like to know where people are coming from on the site to use those forms. to the bots, it looks like there's 600 versions of particular pages, so again, rel=canonical is great. however, because it's actually all the same page, just a link with a variable tacked on (http://www.myhospital.com/makeanappointment.asp?id=211) the rel=canonical tag will appear on "all" of them. any insight is most appreciated! thanks! brett
Technical SEO | | brett_hss0
