Canonical tag
-
Hi all,
I have an ecommerce client and on the pages they have a drop down so customers can view via price, list etc. Natrurally I want a canonical tag on these pages, here's the question.
as they have different pages of products, the canonical tag on http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7/?sort=price_asc,searchterm=,layout=grid,page=1 is to http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7.
now, because the page=7 is a duplicate of the main page, shouldn't the canonical just be to the main page rather than page=7? Even when there is a canonical tag on the /Christmas/page=7 to the /Christmas page?
hope that makes sense to everyone!
-
Ok, thanks Peter, really appreciate the advice! Ill give that a go and see if that brings down the errors on the website.
-
I'm honestly not entirely sure how rel=prev/next would even be implemented in your current configuration. It would be very complex. My cut feeling is that GWT parameter handling might be a pretty safe first try.
-
Yeah, So would you recommend using either of those options over the rel=next/prev?
-
Oh, so the "Loading More" is basically JS, but Google is crawling it? It might be better if you could use AJAX style ("hash-bang") URLs, and try to keep Google from crawling that at all.
The other option would just be to block the "page=" parameter in Google Webmaster Tools. It's not always ideal (since it's Google-specific), but it might be your easiest bet here.
-
Thanks Peter, it's stumped me somewhat this. The site has JavaScript that loads the new pages so the user doesn't see it in the URL but the pages load in the back end and this is causing thousands of duplicate title and content issues. We don't have a view all page to canonical to and the page load speed is what had my worried that it wouldn't fix the problems
the website is www.thegreatgiftcompany.com - I'd be hugely grateful if you could have a look and let me know what you'd do. Really appreciate your time on this.
-
Yeah, it gets messy. I think I'm on the same page as Dan, but just some clarification. The two "approved" options are:
(1) Canonical all of the paginated series, including filters, to the "View All" version. One warning - Google only recommends this if the view all page loads fast and isn't too huge (and that's just good advice for usability, too).
(2) Using rel=prev/next for the paginated series, but then rel=canonical to point the filtered version to the current page. It's a bit mess.
Here are two good posts on the subject, but I'm afraid they reveal just how messy it is and how much SEOs differ in opinion. No real-world solution is perfect, that I've found:
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284
-
Ok, brilliant. Thanks for your advice.
-
I tend to make the recommendation of having canonicals on paginated pages point to the view all page. The reason for this is that this page will contain all the results, so therefore there will not be any duplicates.
I also believe it is good user experience for people to have all content accessible immediately through infinite scrolling - they can then filter and order as they choose.
For yourexample I would canonical to the /all page.
-
Hi dan, thanks for the reply. We do have an /Christmas/_all page. Are you staying that all the canonicals should go to this structure? We build to the none /_all versions so wouldn't this have a negative effect on rankings?
-
For this example you should create a 'view all' page where all the content is listed in one single view. You should then point the canonical tag to the this page, so that all content is indexed.
If this is not possible, then you should use rel="prev" and rel="next" tags to show the relationship between each page when linking. Google can explain this better than me here!
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
-
Pagination & Canonicals
Hi I've been looking at how we paginate our product pages & have a quick question on canonicals. Is this the right way to display.. Or should the canonical point to the main page http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/euro-containers-stacking-containers, so Google doesn't pick up duplicate meta information? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Is it alright to repeat a keyword in the title tag?
I know at first glance, the answer to this is a resounding NO, that it can be construed as keyword stuffing,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MIGandCo
but please hear me out. I am working on optimizing a client's website and although MOST of the title tags
can be optimized without repeating a keyword, occasionally I run into one where it doesn't read right if I
don't repeat the keyword. Here's an example: Current title:
Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name What I am considering using as the optimized title:
Adobe Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name Yes, I know both titles are longer than recommended. In both instances, only the company name gets
truncated so I am not too worried about that. So I guess what I want to know is this: Am I right in my original assumption that it is NEVER okay to
repeat keywords in a title tag or is it alright when it makes sense to do so?0 -
Can Googlebots read canonical tags on pages with javascript redirects?
Hi Moz! We have old locations pages that we can't redirect to the new ones because they have AJAX. To preserve pagerank, we are putting canonical tags on the old location pages. Will Googlebots still read these canonical tags if the pages have a javascript redirect? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Rel Canonical attribute order
So the position of the attribute effect the rel canonical tags' ability to function? is the way I see it across multiple documents and websites. Having a discussion with someone in the office and there is a website with it set up as: Will that cause any problems? The website is inquestion still has both pages indexed within Google using the SITE:domain.com/product as well as SITE:domain.com/category/product
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasondexter0 -
Google tagged URL an overly-dynamic URL?
I'm reviewing my campaign, and spotted the overly-dynamic URL box showing a few links. Reviewing it, they are my Google Tagged URLs (utm_source, utm_medium_utm_campaign etc) I've turned some internal links to Google Tagged URLs but should these cause concern?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Canonical URLs and Sitemaps
We are using canonical link tags for product pages in a scenario where the URLs on the site contain category names, and the canonical URL points to a URL which does not contain the category names. So, the product page on the site is like www.example.com/clothes/skirts/skater-skirt-12345, and also like www.example.com/sale/clearance/skater-skirt-12345 in another category. And on both of these pages, the canonical link tag references a 3rd URL like www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. This 3rd URL, used in the canonical link tag is a valid page, and displays the same content as the other two versions, but there are no actual links to this generic version anywhere on the site (nor external). Questions: 1. Does the generic URL referenced in the canonical link also need to be included as on-page links somewhere in the crawled navigation of the site, or is it okay to be just a valid URL not linked anywhere except for the canonical tags? 2. In our sitemap, is it okay to reference the non-canonical URLs, or does the sitemap have to reference only the canonical URL? In our case, the sitemap points to yet a 3rd variation of the URL, like www.example.com/product.jsp?productID=12345. This page retrieves the same content as the others, and includes a canonical link tag back to www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. Is this a valid approach, or should we revise the sitemap to point to either the category-specific links or the canonical links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 379seo0 -
Multilingual sites: Canonical and Alternate tag implementation question
Hello, I would like some clarification about the correct implementation of the rel="alternate" tag and the canonical tag. The example given at http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077 recommends implementing the canonical tag on all region specific sub-domains, and have it point to the www version of the website Here's the example given by Google. My question is the following. Would this technique also apply if I have region specific sites site local TLD. In other words, if I have www.example.com, www.example.co.uk, www.example.ca – all with the same content in English, but prices and delivery options tailored for US, UK and Canada residents, should I go ahead and implement the canonical tag and alternate tag as follows: I am a bit concerned about canonicalizing an entire local TLD to the .com site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Amiee0 -
Canonical category pages
A couple of years ago I used to receive a lot of traffic via my category pages but now I don't receive as much, in the past year I've modified the category pages to canonical. I have 15 genres for the category pages, other than the most recent sorting there is no sorting available for the users on the cat pages, a recent image link added can over time drop off to page 2 of the category page, for example mysite.com/cat-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-23. New image link can drop off to page 2. mysite.com/dog-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-53. New image link can drop off to page 2. mysite.com/turtle-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-2. New image link can drop off to page 2. Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html One thing that I have noticed is the unique popup short description tooltips that I have on the image links only appears in google for the first pages of each category page, it seems to ignore the other pages. In view of this am I right in applying canonical ref or just treating it as normal pages.? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Flapjack0