Alternative to rel canonical?
-
Hello there, we have a problem.
Let's say we have a website www.mainwebsite.com
Then you have 40 websites like this:
www.retailer6.mainwebsite.com … an so on
In order to avoid the duplicate content penalty from Google we've added a rel="canonical" in each 40 sub-websites mapping each page of them to www.mainwebsite.com
Our issue is that now, all our retailers (each owner of www.retailer-X.mainwebsite.com) are complaining about the fact that they are disappeared from Google.
How can we avoid to use rel="canonical" in the sub-website and not being penalised by Google for duplicate content in www.mainwebsite.com?
Many thanks, all your advices are much appreciated.
YESdesign team
-
Does anyone have more suggestion/alternative strategies? Many thanks in advance.
-
Thank you Tom and Richard555.
-
Tom is very right - you cant have the best of both worlds with your current set up.
Your partners need to attract visitors on their site through content they write and publish - not yours.
All the best.
Richard
-
Your options are pretty limited, I'm afraid.
If you don't want to implement canonicals, then you're only alternative is to not have duplicate content. In which case, you and your retailers will need to rewrite and be unique.
To be honest, I would be pushing all your retailers to do this anyway. Not only will having their unique content help each subdomain rank easier, it should be remembered that the canonical tag is a suggestion to Google, not a directive/order. A very strong suggestion, it's worth noting, but not a 100% proof solution.
Unique content, on the other hand, is.
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
-
WooCommere Canonical links relating to products and subscriptions
Hello, Thanks for taking the time to have a read of this, I'm not quite sure of the best way to address this issue. I have a WooCommerce site with Products and Subscriptions, i.e subscribe to buy the product monthly. Because of the way WooCommerce works these are effectively two different pages, for example: https://formnutrition.com/plant-based-nutrition/form-superblend-plant-based-vegan-protein/ and https://formnutrition.com/plant-based-nutrition/superblend-protein-subscription/ Since the second is just a Subscription of the first (Product) it's basically exactly the same content. I'm not sure if I should make the canonical link of the Subscription point to the Product? I would prefer that customers find the Product first and don't want Google to think this is duplicate content. On the other hand it's not strictly duplicate content as they are two different things? Is there any advice or best practice on how to handle this? Many thanks, Damian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | damo_form0 -
Should I use a rel=canonical to the home page
Hi guys, I have a site where the homepage is ranking for the term 'industrial flooring' around position 30 and the actual level 2 industrial flooring page is ranking well below at around position 60. I'm happy for the homepage to rank for this term and would like to see it improve, so here are my questions: 1: Is the existence of the level 2 page preventing the homepage from ranking higher due to keyword cannibalization etc.? 2: Would the use of the rel=canonical tag pointing from the level 2 page to the home page have a positive or negative impact on the homepage's rankings for 'industrial flooring'? 3: Is there anything else I'm missing? Greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blaze-Communication0 -
Rel="self" and what to do with it?
Hey there Mozzers, Another question about a forum issue I encountered. When a forum thread has more than just one page as we all know the best course of action is to use rel="next" rel="prev" or rel="previous" But my forum automatically creates another line in the header called Rel="self" What that does is simple. If i have 3 pages http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc2
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc3 **instead of this ** On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 On the second page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc2 On the third page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc3: it creates this On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 So as you can see it creates a url by adding the ?page=1 and names it rel=self which actually gives back a duplicate page because now instead of just http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1 I also have the same page at http://www.example.com/article?story=abc1?page=1 Do i even need rel="self"? I thought that rel="next" and rel="prev" was enough? Should I change that?0 -
Should I use rel=canonical on similar product pages.
I'm thinking of using rel=canonical for similar products on my site. Say I'm selling pens and they are al very similar. I.e. a big pen in blue, a pack of 5 blue bic pens, a pack of 10, 50, 100 etc. should I rel=canonical them all to the best seller as its almost impossible to make the pages unique. (I realise the best I realise these should be attributes and not products but I'm sure you get my point) It seems sensible to have one master canonical page for bic pens on a site that has a great description video content and good images plus linked articles etc rather than loads of duplicate looking pages. love to hear thoughts from the Moz community.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mark_baird0 -
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Hi there, I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Canonical Meta Tag
Can someone explain how this works and how necessary is it? For example, I have a new client, who is ranking WITHOUT the www in their domain, but they have a good deal of backlinks already that have www in it. When I set up google webmaster tools I made 2, one for WWW and one for WITHOUT and there are diffenet numbers of backlinks for each. I have no idea what do about this or if I should even do anything. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheGrid0 -
How to Define rel=nofollow Attribute for External Links?
I want to define rel=nofollow attribute for Vista Patio Umbrellas. I have designed narrow by search section on home page. I want to define rel=nofollow attribute for all text links which are available in left navigation. So, what is best solution for that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Canonical URL's - Do they need to be on the "pointed at" page?
My understanding is that they are only required on the "pointing pages" however I've recently heard otherwise.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DPSSeomonkey0