Is Rel=Canonical the answer???
-
Hey Mozzers,
Can you help me with something please. I have some important content going live next week for a client. We work on there blog optimisation and this piece of content is going live on both the blog and parent site. The parent site has huge DA in comparions to the blog.
I want to get the traffic directed to the blog and get the blog ranking - bare in mind the content is exactly the same so it is dupe.
If I want to get the blog ranking above the parent site and to direct the traffic here is a cross domain Rel=Canonical the answer?
Has anyone else had this issue?
Thanks
Bush
-
That's great - many thanks for all of your help.
I'll update this post of any outcome as it may help others in the future.
Thanks Dr Pete
GB
-
You'll pass the PA - the impact on DA is a bit hard to estimate. It depends a lot on the strength of the individual pages, and, of course, if Google honors the tags. Once the canonical kicks in, the links won't be processed, most likely. It's a dicey proposition, though, and you'll probably need to adjust as you go. Most likely negative scenario is that the impact just isn't what you'd hoped for.
-
Hi Dr Pete,
Thanks as always. I just re-read my response and the spelling mistakes are shocking so apologies for that
Can I ask if I implement a tag page by page and choose say 10 pages to rel= canonical from the parent site to the blog will this boost the the DA of the blog? We have links from the parent site to the blog in the footer. Will a Rel=Canonical tag pass more juice over to get it ranking? We want the blog to rank for brand name only which is an exact match of the parent URL. Parent URL ranks number 1, we want blog 2, 3 or 4.
I can't go into specifics so sorry to be vague.
Thanks as always
Gareth
-
It should work, but as I mentioned, I'd stick to doing it page-by-page. If there's a blog "home" on the parent site, you could cross-domain it to the new site. Just make sure you don't cross-domain some critical, high-authority page on the main site, or you could cause yourself more harm than good. Ultimately, you're giving authority from your main site to the new site, and that's not a free transaction - everything you gain on one side costs you something on the other.
-
Hi Dr Pete,
Thanks for your answer on this. In this case the rationale behind the implementation was purely to drive traffic over to the blog (not the parent site which is well known) to get more exposure of the blog content. The piece that was released was pretty 'hot' at the time and could gain more returning visitors and exposure to the blog which in comparison is little known.
In the end is wasn't possible and the news which got lots of traction went on the parent site so tage was implemented.
I can that splitting the blog away from the parent site is messy and we always advise against this, however in this case there is internal justification for this which I can't go into here.
Thanks for everything as always
Gareth
-
Generally, I have to say that I think splitting out your blog site can do more harm than good, and splitting up AND double-posting is especially messy. I'm not sure on the business justifications, but from an SEO standpoint it's almost always trouble, long-term.
That said, cross-domain canonical should be effective here. It's a bit hard to predict, since the parent site is stronger, but done correctly, it should be low risk. I'm concerned with your implementation (in the comments), though, because it sounds like you're pointing the entire parent site to the blog site. That could be disastrous. Ideally, you'd canonical each individual blog post at the level of their unique URLs. Otherwise, you could really disrupt the ranking ability of your main site. Unfortunately, without seeing the exact site structure, I can't really tell you what the tag should look like.
-
Hi Streamline,
We have to add the tag - the snippet idea although a great idea doesn't work for them.
Can I ask you as a follow up - is the below tag correct . I would add this to the parent site and the below tag tells Google that the parent site is hosting content and the blog is the canonical versions:
The below tag to the parent site, I'll add it to the section of the parent site not the blog:
-
Hi Streamline - thanks for such a helpful response.
I'll see what I can do and post here the outcome if i use Rel=canonical as it may help others.
Cheers for everything
bush
-
Would it be possible to only post the content on the blog and then add a few paragraphs on the main site which then links to the blog for the full article? I think that would be ideal.
Otherwise, you could try using the cross domain canonical tag in order to get the blog ranking for the content. The issue is that Google considers the canonical tag to be a hint rather than an absolute directive, so it might not necessarily work. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.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
-
Can you use the canonical tag and rel=next and rel=prev on category pages.
We have a conflict of information between our web developers and our SEO company. We are an on-line retail company hence we have a fair number of different categories. Our site is set up with the rel=next and rel=prev tags. Our SEO company have asked us to implement canonical links on our category pages and leave the rel=next and rel=prev tags as they are. Our web developers are saying by doing this we are asking Google to ignore all of our products on all of the pages except page 1 which would mean Google would not index a lot of our products. I have looked at a few articles but I am struggling to understand which way to go. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | Palmbourne0 -
Too many page links warning... but each link has canonical back to main page? Is my page OK?
The Moz crawl warns me many of my pages have too many links, like this page http://www.webjobz.com/jobs/industry/Accounting ...... has 269 links but many of the links are like this /jobs/jobtitles/Accounting?k=&w=3&hiddenLocationID=463170&depth=2 and are used to refine search criteria.... when you click on those links they all have a canonical link back to http://www.webjobz.com/jobs/industry/Accounting Is my page being punished for this? Do I have to put "no follow" tags on every link I do not want the bots to follow and if I do so is Roger (moz bot) not going to count this as a link?
On-Page Optimization | | Webjobz0 -
I have 2 canonical links. Must get rid of one?
On my wordpress blog, i have 2 canonical links for every single post, like this: One is generated by wordpress theme: rel='canonical' href='http://site.com/article-title/' /> The other one is generated by AllinOne seo pack: <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">http://site.com/article-title/</a>" /> I tried to remove one of them, but if i uncheck from AllinOne, the source code is the same. Also, on-page analysis from SeoMoz tells me that i need only one canonical link. I don't have errors in Google Webmater Tools. What should I do?
On-Page Optimization | | Vladone800 -
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing?
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing? I had "twin" domains so I redirected my .com to www..com and now I have a lot of Rel Canonical Links.
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Canonical URL tags help I am not sure what this is
I am trying to get an A grade on my webpage and this is one of the critical steps canonical URL tags I cant find much information as to what this even is never mind fixing it. Thanks I am a total newbe at this any advice is appreciated
On-Page Optimization | | gemfirez0 -
Canonical
http://www.providenceelectricnc.com/monroe-electrician-nc Shows great in on Page Report Card for Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical No More Than One Canonical URL Tag Then POW Canonical URL Tag Usage .... it says there is none ....?? HUH ? Searched forum but it is not discussed . Thanks !
On-Page Optimization | | SEOJunkie670 -
Crawling - Blue Notice - Canonical
Hi, I have 270x blue notices within crawl diagnostics in SEOMoz Pro labelled rel=canonical. My site has the rel=canonical tag set-up as I was advised to do so. See www.comparecurrency.co.uk Are these notices suggesting I have to remove the tag? Can somebody please explain this notice to me .. Thanks Olly
On-Page Optimization | | ojkingston0 -
Why is On-Page showing canonical wrong?
I'm trying to use the On-Page report card and it's saying that my rel=canonical is wrong, I've looked and I can't see anything wrong with it, am I missing something? The url is www.harrisonlighting.co.uk/childrens-lights.html
On-Page Optimization | | HarrisonLighting0