Two pages on same domain - Is this a proper use of the canonical tag?
-
I have a domain with two pages in question--one is an article with 2,000 words and the other is a FAQ with 300 words. The 300 word FAQ is copied, word-for-word and pasted inside of the 2,000 word article.
Would it be a proper use of the canonical tag to point the smaller, 300 word FAQ at the 2,000 word article?
Since the 300 word article is identical to a portion of the 2,000 word article, will Google see this as duplicate content?
Thanks in advance for any helpful insight.
-
Yes, pointing from a subset to a superset of information is one of the main reasons for the canonical. So Google would not view it as improper. Just remember... Canonicals are a suggestion NOT a directive. Google will choose whether to listen to you or not.
-
For our users it is ideal the entire FAQ is answered at the top (and within) the article and as a separate FAQ page living in a different area of our site.
We would also like the article to be the only page ranking for those questions, so as long as Google does not view using a canonical tag for pointing subsets to a superset of information as improper, the canonical solution would definitely be ideal.
Thank you for your answer, Mike. I believe by using the canonical to point a subset to a superset we should have a perfect solution.
-
This sounds like an ambiguous area. Your FAQ is your FAQ and should stand on its own. Now, technically speaking, if the article is what you want ranking for your FAQ you could consider a canonical tag telling Google that your FAQ is a subset of the Article's superset.
You could also, instead of including the 300 word FAQ copy/pasted into the article, link to the FAQ from the article where relevant and/or only include a sentence or two from the FAQ that is pertinent to the article.
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
-
Company Rebranded - Domain/Page Authority Question
Our company rebranded, our old domain has pretty good PA and DA. Any way to utilize our old domain to boost PA/DA of our new domain? PS - Both are hosted on the same host (same IP).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | idlwebinc0 -
Is there an advantage to using rel=canonical rather than noindex on pages on my mobile site (m.company.com)?
Is there an advantage to using link rel=alternate (as recommended by Google) rather than noindex on pages on my mobile site (m.company.com)? The content on the mobile pages is very similar to the content on the desktop site. I see Google recommends canonical and alternate tags, but what are the benefits of using those rather than noindex?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jennifer.new0 -
Do I use H1 tag for logo or page content?
Should the h1 tag be used for the main page content or the logo? I understand the original method was too H1 the logo with the main search term, does this still hold true or should it be content focused?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Is it a problem that Google's index shows paginated page urls, even with canonical tags in place?
Since Google shows more pages indexed than makes sense, I used Google's API and some other means to get everything Google has in its index for a site I'm working on. The results bring up a couple of oddities. It shows a lot of urls to the same page, but with different tracking code.The url with tracking code always follows a question mark and could look like: http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example http://www.MozExampleURL.com?another-tracking-examle http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example-3 etc So, the only thing that distinguishes one url from the next is a tracking url. On these pages, canonical tags are in place as: <link rel="canonical<a class="attribute-value">l</a>" href="http://www.MozExampleURL.com" /> So, why does the index have urls that are only different in terms of tracking urls? I would think it would ignore everything, starting with the question mark. The index also shows paginated pages. I would think it should show the one canonical url and leave it at that. Is this a problem about which something should be done? Best... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Pagination, Canonical Tag & Best Practices
I have an eCommerce site that dynamically creates category pages, which produce canonical tags in the header. For multiple page categories, it adds the page number to the URL. For example, this category has 3 pages.... Because most categories have too many products, I can't follow Googles suggestion of creating a "view all" page. Furthermore since all these pages use the same template, I'm unable to insert a NOINDEX tag in all the pages after the first page. Also, in this scenario, I'm unable to insert the discreet code for Next/Previous, which is also suggested by Google. My only option for maintaining these dynamically generated category pages would be to hardcode the first conical tag in the template, which would then be produced on all subsequent paginated pages. Consequently, every paginated page in this category would have the same canonical tag pointing to the first page. Would this incur the wrath of Google and would I'd be better off leaving the pagination they way it is?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
Changing domains - best process to use?
I am about to move my Thailand-focused travel website into a new, broader Asia-focused travel website. The Thailand site has had a sad history with Google (algorithmic, not penalties) so I don't want that history to carry over into the new site. At the same time though, I want to capture the traffic that Google is sending me right now and I would like my search positions on Bing and Yahoo to carry through if possible. Is there a way to make all that happen? At the moment I have migrated all the posts over to the new domain but I have it blocked to search engines. I am about to start redirecting post for post using meta-refresh redirects with a no-follow for safety. But at the point where I open the new site up to indexing, should I at the same time block the old site from being indexed to prevent duplicate content penalties? Also, is there a method I can use to selectively 301 redirect posts only if the referrer is Bing or Yahoo, but not Google, before the meta-refresh fires? Or alternatively, a way to meta-refresh redirect if the referrer is Google but 301 redirect otherwise? Or is there a way to "noindex, nofollow" the redirect only if the referrer is Google? Is there a danger of being penalised for doing any of these things? Late Edit: It occurs to me that if my penalties are algorithmic (e.g. due to bad backlinks), does 301 redirection even carry that issue through to the new website? Or is it left behind on the old site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavin.Atkinson0 -
What is the proper syntax for rel="canonical" ??
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
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
Does using robots.txt to block pages decrease search traffic?
I know you can use robots.txt to tell search engines not to spend their resources crawling certain pages. So, if you have a section of your website that is good content, but is never updated, and you want the search engines to index new content faster, would it work to block the good, un-changed content with robots.txt? Would this content loose any search traffic if it were blocked by robots.txt? Does anyone have any available case studies?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0