100's of versions of the same page. Is rel=canonical the solution???
-
Hi,
I am currently working with an eCommerce site that has a goofy set up for their contact form.
Basically, their are hundreds of "contact us" pages that look exactly the same but have different URLs and are used to help the store owner determine which product the user contacted them about. So almost every product has it's own "contact us" URL.
The obvious solution is to do away with this set up but if that is not an option, would a rel=canonical tag linked back to the actually "contact us" page be a possible solution? Or is the canonical tag only used to show the difference between www vs non-www?
Thanks!
-
I understand that you got some parameters in the url since you need them to recognize the product.
Just put a canonical to the generic contact us page and you're done.
Be sure that those parameters will be not carried over in other pages. In that sennse you'll better set up a self referring canonical on all pages so you'll avoid any dupe issue in the future.
-
Yup, use the canonical tag to tell the search engines which URL should be designated as the "correct" page to index. Here is some more information from Google - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
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
-
My Recent Drop from the first page
Hello, I have a website design operation in Akron, Ohio. I have been ranking on the first page for the last year or so. Just recently (within the last 5 -6 weeks) I have fell back to page 2 on google. I have changed up my content a little bit on my home page, adding more references to the "Web Design Akron Ohio" keyword. I have looked at the sites ahead of me and I noticed that most of the highest ranking sites are using Meta-Keywords, which moz suggest not to. I added Meta-Keywords about 10 days ago just testing if there would be any ranking change and so far no change at all. Would someone be kind enough to look at my site and throw out some suggestions of what I might do to get back to the first page? I'm trying to rank for "web design akron ohio" and my URL is http://www.uswebproducts.com Any help would be appreciated.
Industry News | | Scott-Jones0 -
What is the most current advice on editing your company Wikipedia page?
I've noticed a lot of incorrect and misleading information on our company Wikipedia page. Should we, as a company, be actively monitoring and updating this page when we spot factual errors. I realize wikipedia doesn't want marketeze or heavy PR on company pages, but those are the people that generally pay attention to wikipedia entries. Also, we certainly don't want to get penalized or cause any undue media attention from our edits. If possible can you also offer links to other sources rather than just opinion or personal experience, I'm having to present this to a large corporate board and want to be as detailed as possible. Thank you,
Industry News | | kerplow
Kerplow0 -
Google's Current Wave of Updates (4/24 edition)
Edit: Someone beat me to the punch, here is the thread: http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-webspam-algo-update-24-4-12 Let's just discuss it there. So Google has said they are doing another wave of algorithm updates that could impact anywhere from 3-5% of SERPs. I saw it here: http://searchengineland.com/google-launches-update-targeting-webspam-in-search-results-119295 http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html Has anyone seen any changes? I've heard from a few friends that their sites are bouncing all over the place, which seems to happy a lot during these updates. We might not actually know the fallout for a few days/weeks/months. I saw a few of my smaller sites take a hit, but most of mine have stayed the same. Anyway what do you guys think? Sometimes an update like this can be a wake-up call to people who think they are doing white hat stuff but may be pushing the envelope a bit too much. Thoughts?
Industry News | | vforvinnie0 -
Is a canonical to itself a link juice leak
Duane Forrester from Bing said that you should not have a canonical pointing back to the same page as it confuses Bingbot,
Industry News | | AlanMosley
“A lot of websites have rel=canonicals in place as placeholders within their page code. Its best to leave them blank rather than point them at themselves. Pointing a rel=canonical at the page it is installed in essentially tells us “this page is a copy of itself. Please pass any value from itself to itself.” No need for that.” He also stated that a canonical is much like a 301 except that it does not physically move the user to the canonical page. This leads me to think that having such a tag may leak link juice. “Please pass any value from itself to itself”
Google has stated that GoogleBot can handle such a tag, but this still does not mean that it is not leaking link juice.0 -
Is using Turkish characters like ş, ğ , ü in the URLs better for SEO?
My web site is Turkish. And my keyword is "yurtdışı üniversite" I want to know, using Turkish characters like ş, ğ , ü in my URLs better for SEO? http://www.studyzone.com.tr/haber-detay/2011/06/21/yurtdışı-üniversite-kayıtları-için-acele-edin! OR http://www.studyzone.com.tr/haber-detay/2011/06/21/yurtdisi-universite-kayitlari-icin-acele-edin!
Industry News | | apesteli0 -
Google's New Release "What do you love"
Is this gonna be a game changer for SEO http://www.wdyl.com/ Regards, Shailendra Sial
Industry News | | IM_Learner0 -
Google API's
As you may know Google has API’s http://code.google.com/more/ I can see ones for Blogs, News etc. but not for general search am I being dense? If someone can point me in the right direction that would be great. Justin
Industry News | | GrouchyKids0 -
Did Google's Farmer Update Positively/Negatively Affect Your Search Traffic?
See the attached image, showing a comparison of SEOmoz.org's search traffic from Google over the past 6 days and the prior week. farmer-3x.gif
Industry News | | randfish2