Reinforcing Rel Canonical? (Fixing Duplicate Content)
-
Hi Mozzers,
We're having trouble with duplicate content between two sites, so we're looking to add some oomph to the rel canonical link elements we put on one of our sites pointing towards the other to help speed up the process and give Google a bigger hint.
Would adding a hyperlink on the "copying" website pointing towards the "original" website speed this process up?
Would we get in trouble if added about 80,000 links (1 on each product page) with a link to the matching product on the other site? For example, we could use text like "Buy XY product on Other Brand Name and receive 10% off!"
-
Have you seen a corresponding drop-off in the ListFinder pages over that time. If the canonical is kicking in, you should see some of those pages fall out as more ConsumerBase pages kick in.
Is there a reason your canonical'ing from the more indexed site to the less indexed one. It could be a mixed signal if Google things that ListFinder is a more powerful or authoritative site. Cross-domain can get tricky fast.
Unfortunately, beyond NOINDEX'ing, it's about your best option, and certainly one of your safest. It's really hard to predict what the combo of cross-domain canonical plus link would do. From a dupe content standpoint, it's risk free. From the standpoint of creating 80K links from one of your sites to another of your sites, it's a little risky (don't want to look like a link network). Since you're only talking two sites, though, it's probably not a huge issue, especially with the canonical already in place.
Google interprets cross-domain canonical heavily, so it can be a little hard to predict and control. Interestingly, the ConsumerBase site has higher Domain Authority, but the page you provided has lower Page Authority than its "sister" page. Might be a result of your internal linking structure giving more power to the ListFinder pages.
-
Great post Peter.
Here are some links of a product that is on both sites. Hopefully this will help you provide some more insight.
http://www.consumerbase.com/mailing-lists/shutterbugsphotography-enthusiasts-mailing-list.html
http://www.listfinder.com/mailing-lists/shutterbugsphotography-enthusiasts-mailing-list.htmlThe ListFinder pages are currently mostly indexed (70k out of 80k) which makes me think they are different enough from one another to not warrant a penalty.
The ConsumerBase pages started indexing well when we added the rel canonical code to LF (went from about 2k pages to 30k in early December, but since 1/2/2013 we have seen a dropoff in indexed pages down to about 5k.
Thanks!
-
With products, it's a bit hard to say. Cross-domain canonical could work, but Google can be a bit finicky about it. Are you seeing the pages on both sides in the Google index, or just one or the other? Sorry, it's a bit hard to diagnose without seeing a sample URL.
If this were more traditional syndicated content, you could set a cross-domain canonical and link the copy back to the source. That would provide an additional signal of which site should get credit. With your case, though, I haven't seen a good example of that - I don't think it would be harmful, though (to add the link, that is).
If you're talking about 80K links, then you've got 80K+ near-duplicate product pages. Unfortunately, it could go beyond just having one or the other version get filtered out. This could trigger a Panda or Panda-like penalty against the site in general. The cross-domain canonical should help prevent this, whereas the links probably won't. I do think it's smart to be proactive, though.
Worst case, you could META NOINDEX the product pages on one site - they'd still be available to users, but wouldn't rank. I think the cross-domain canonical is probably preferable here, but if you ran into trouble, META NOINDEX would be the more severe approach (and could help solve that trouble).
-
Yes, sir - that would be correct.
www.consumerbase.com and www.listfinder.com.
The sites are not 100% identical, just the content on the product pages.
-
are these two sites on the same root domain? it seems like most of the feedback you're getting are from people who are assuming they are however, it sounds to me like there are two separate domains
-
Zora,
Google accepts cross domain canonical as long as the pages have more similar content.
It is not necessary to add hyperlink pointing to canonical page. If your sites are crawler friendly, canonical hints will change search results very quickly.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
Ensure that Google doesn't find any issue with your Sitemaps. If you add products frequently, submit the updated Sitemap following the same schedule.
All the best.
-
I am sorry i am not understanding why you need a rel = in this matter if the sites are two different sites?
What is your end goal ?
-
We chose rel canonical because we still want users to be able to visit and navigate through site 2.
They are both e-commerce sites with similar products, not exactly identical sites.
-
Zora. Totally understand, but my input and what Majority of people do is redirect the traffic.
A server side htaccess 301 Redirect is your BEST choice here.
Why dont you want o use a 301 and prefer a Rel, curious on what your take is on this.
and Thanks for the rel update info i didnt know
-
Thanks for the info Hampig, I'll definitely take a look.
Rel Canonical actually works cross domain now, Google updated it from when it originally came out.
-
Zora hope you are doing well.
I came across this video about a few weeks ago. I think this is suppose to be found under Webmaster tools although i have not used it, i think it might be the best solution to get googles attention to portions of the pages and what they are suppose to be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrEJds3QeTw
Ok but i am confused a bit. You have two different domains ?
or two version of the same domain?
Because from the sound of it you have two different domains and using rel = con wont work and you would have to do a 301 redirect. Even for my sites when i change the pages around i use 301 redirect for the same existing site.
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
-
Questions about Event Calendar Format and Duplicate Content
Hi there: We maintain a calendar of digital events and conferences on our website here: https://splatworld.tv/events/ . We're trying to add as many events as we can and I'm wondering about the descriptions of each. We're pulling them from the conference websites, mostly, but I'm worried about the scraped content creating duplicate content issues. I've also noticed that most calendars of this type which rank well are not including actual event descriptions, but rather just names, locations and a link out to the conference website. See https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-ultimate-calendar-of-digital-marketing-events-2017/ and http://www.marketingterms.com/conferences/ . Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks, in ..advance..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
Use of Rel=Canonical
I have been pondering whether I am using this tag correctly or not. We have a custom solution which lays out products in the typical eCommerce style with plenty of tick box filters to further narrow down the view. When I last researched this it seemed like a good idea to implement rel=canonical to point all sub section pages at a 'view-all' page which returns all the products unfiltered for that given section. Normally pages are restricted down to 9 results per page with interface options to increase that. This combined with all the filters we offer creates many millions of possible page permutations and hence the need for the Canonical tag. I am concerned because our view-all pages get large, returning all of that section's product into one place.If I pointed the view-all page at say the first page of x results would that defeat the object of the view-all suggestion that Google made a few years back as it would require further crawling to get at all the data? Alternatively as these pages are just product listings, would NoIndex be a better route to go given that its unlikely they will get much love in Google anyway?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | motiv80 -
Canonical VS Rel=Next & Rel=Prev for Paginated Pages
I run an ecommerce site that paginates product pages within Categories/Sub-Categories. Currently, products are not displayed in multiple categories but this will most likely happen as time goes on (in Clearance and Manufacturer Categories). I am unclear as to the proper implementation of Canonical tags and Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages. I do not have a View All page to use as the Canonical URL so that is not an option. I want to avoid duplicate content issues down the road when products are displayed in multiple categories of the site and have Search Engines index paginated pages. My question is, should I use the Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages as well as using Page One as the Canonical URL? Also, should I implement the Canonical tag on pages that are not yet paginated (only one page)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj7750 -
Rel Canonical on Home Page
I have a client who says they can't implement a 301 on their home page. They have tow different urls for their home page that are live and do not redirect. I know that the best solution would be to redirect one to the main URL but they say this isn't possible. So they implemented the rel canonical instead. Is this the second best solution for them if they can't redirect? Will the link juice be passed through the rel canonical? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
Syndicating duplicate content descriptions - Can these be canonicalised?
Hi there, I have a site that contains descriptions of accommodation and we also use this content to syndicate to our partner sites. They then use this content to fill their descriptions on the same accommodation locations. I have looked at copyscape and Google and this does appear as duplicate content across these partnered sites. I do understand as well that certain kinds of content will not impact Google's duplication issue such as locations, addresses, opening times those kind of things, but would actual descriptions of a location around 250 words long be seen and penalised as duplicate content? Also is there a possible way to canonicalise this content so that Google can see it relates back to our original site? The only other way I can think of getting round a duplicate content issue like this is ordering the external sites to use tags like blockquotes and cite tags around the content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MalcolmGibb0 -
Can PDF be seen as duplicate content? If so, how to prevent it?
I see no reason why PDF couldn't be considered duplicate content but I haven't seen any threads about it. We publish loads of product documentation provided by manufacturers as well as White Papers and Case Studies. These give our customers and prospects a better idea off our solutions and help them along their buying process. However, I'm not sure if it would be better to make them non-indexable to prevent duplicate content issues. Clearly we would prefer a solutions where we benefit from to keywords in the documents. Any one has insight on how to deal with PDF provided by third parties? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gestisoft-Qc1 -
Duplicate Content on Blog
I have a blog I'm setting up. I would like to have a mini-about block set up on every page that gives very brief information about me and my blog, as well as a few links to the rest of the site and some social sharing options. I worry that this will get flagged as duplicate content because a significant amount of my pages will contain the same information at the top of the page, front and center. Is there anything I can do to address this? Is it as much of a concern as I am making it? Should I work on finding some javascript/ajax method for loading that content into the page dynamically only for normal browser pageviews? Any thoughts or help would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grayloon0 -
I have a duplicate content problem
The website guy that made the website for my business Premier Martial Arts Austin disappeared and didn't set up that www. was to begin each URL, so I now have a duplicate content problem and don't want to be penalized for it. I tried to show in Webmaster tools the preferred setup but can't get it to OK that I'm the website owner. Any idea as what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OhYeahSteve0