Quick Rel Canonical Link Juice Question
-
Let's say I have two duplicate pages, A and B. However, A has 5 external links and B has 3 _different _external links. If I add the rel canonical tag to B, so that A is the "master page" do I also lose whatever link juice was going to B from the 3 external links?
-
Hey Chris,
I don't have anymore context; it was just a thought experiment. I'm doing my best to wrap my head around in foreseeable issues I might have.
Thanks for the help,
Ruben
-
Adding a canonical tag from another domain is a whole different matter.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html
Google is aware of where it found content first and the tricks people use to try and fool it. This subject has been brought up numerous times in Google Hangouts.
"While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible." Google
There is no "penalty" for duplicate content, Google calls them Algorithmic devaluations. content theft has been an issue for years and making small changes to content does not work well anymore.
Also look into Google Authorship for further protection.
-
Hi KempRugeLawGroup,
If the two pages are exactly identical, you may want to 301 redirect page B to page A to consolidate the link juice flowing to both pages A and B from external sources. If you could provide us with some more context as to why you are pursuing a rel=canonical instead of a redirect, we may be able to provide more specific advice.
And to your latest post, if a site were to copy your post and change only a few words, the site would be penalized for duplicate content (unless the copy were significantly changed).
Regards,
Chris
-
Well, unless I missed something, does that mean someone from another website could copy one of my posts, target different keywords, add a rel canonical tag, and suffer no penalty? A lot of my content would be universal, if it were not targeted to my service area. For example, why you should hire a divorce attorney in Tampa?
Could someone in Orlando just do the above steps and be fine? (Change Tampa to Orlando, Target Orlando, add a rel canonical).
Thanks!
-
No Both pages stay exactly as they are. A canonical tag does not work like a 301 redirect.
John Mueller at Google has stated in the past that even if you use a canonical tag it is only an indication to Google as to what page to use, Google will still make its own decision, both pages will always remain on your site and each of those pages will have a different link profile that will affect them differently.
Adding a canonical tag will not merge the link profile, If you wanted to get the link juice to merge from B to A then a 301 is your best bet.
Hope that helps
-
The Canonical page reference is supposed to be used to tell the spiders that these 2 pages are identical. Sounds like if you have different links on 2 separate pages then they are no longer identical.
That being said there are all sorts of reasons why you may want to canonical one page to another. Hec if I could get Microsoft to Canonical their website to my storefront I would jump at the chance to pass their link juice to my site.
So here is what we are seeing with our Canonical pages. The original or lead page, page A in your example improves in its link juice, and becomes the dominant page, the second page, or page B in your case does not loose importance or have less link juice, it only serves to bolster page A.
So what this effectively does is tell the search engines how to order their results for 2 identical pages. But how does this work for two different pages? If we are selling widgets, and thing-a-ma-bobs. Neither page looses its importance in search engines as long as we are targeting different keywords and optimization for each page.
but once they are identical, then we are ranking the more important page.
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
-
Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical
Hello, We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago). So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present. Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it? Thanks in advance for your help. Tej Luchmun
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts0 -
Unpaid Followed Links & Canonical Links from Syndicated Content
I have a user of our syndicated content linking to our detailed source content. The content is being used across a set of related sites and driving good quality traffic. The issue is how they link and what it looks like. We have tens of thousands of new links showing up from more than a dozen domains, hundreds of sub-domains, but all coming from the same IP. The growth rate is exponential. The implementation was supposed to have canonical tags so Google could properly interpret the owner and not have duplicate syndicated content potentially outranking the source. The canonical are links are missing and the links to us are followed. While the links are not paid for, it looks bad to me. I have asked the vendor to no-follow the links and implement the agreed upon canonical tag. We have no warnings from Google, but I want to head that off and do the right thing. Is this the right approach? What would do and what would you you do while waiting on the site owner to make the fixes to reduce the possibility of penguin/google concerns? Blair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BlairKuhnen0 -
Best solution for facets in ecommerce store for optimum link juice distribution?
Now I have facets setup with ajax and ajax just adding parameter #facet1... at end of URL and I have setup canonical so that domain.com/category/#facet1 refers to
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
domain.com/category/ Would you make the facet links no-follow or better better not to add no-follow for better link juice distribution?
Would you hide the whole facet block from google and if so how? Any thoughts?0 -
Rel=Canonical=CONFUSED
Hey, I am a confused canonical and here's why - please help! I have a master website called www.1099pro.com and then many other websites that simply duplicate the material on the master site (i.e www.1099A.com, www.1099T.com, www.1099solution.com, and the list goes on). These other domains & pages have been around for long enough that they have been able to garner some page authority & domain authority that it makes it worthwhile to redirect them to their corresponding pages on www.1099pro.com. The problem is two-fold when trying to pass this link-juice: I do not have access to the web-service that hosts the other sites/domains and cannot 301 redirect them The other sites/domains are setup so that whatever changes I make to www.1099pro.com are automatically distributed across all the other sites. This means that when I put on www.1099pro.com it also shows up on all the other domains. It is my understanding that having on a site such as www.1099solution.com does not pass any link juice and actually eliminates that page from the search results. Is there any way that I can pass the link juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
Do links to PDF's on my site pass "link juice"?
Hi, I have recently started a project on one of my sites, working with a branch of the U.S. government, where I will be hosting and publishing some of their PDF documents for free for people to use. The great SEO side of this is that they link to my site. The thing is, they are linking directly to the PDF files themselves, not the page with the link to the PDF files. So my question is, does that give me any SEO benefit? While the PDF is hosted on my site, there are no links in it that would allow a spider to start from the PDF and crawl the rest of my site. So do I get any benefit from these great links? If not, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could get credit for them. Keep in mind that editing the PDF's are not allowed by the government. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
Home Page Link Juice Dilution
I have worked to build out a keyword targeted library of over 700 Guides of approx. 800 word each. They are specifically targeted at actionable verticals and contain 3x strategically placed CTAs in each article. So far, I have only managed to get a low level of uniques per day to this section of the website. This website's external backlinks are largely pointed at the home page. Furthermore, the home page has a footer link to 10,000 SEO crawl-able user generated profiles. These profiles have little potential for conversion and offer little value. Given the above information, I was hoping that someone could help me with the following questions: Is it possible that home page link juice is becoming diluted as result 10,000 user profiles being live on the site? If so, can a "no follow" on the home page footer link to the user profiles prevent the juice from transferring? Overall, I would like to redirect this PR5 domain's link juice to these guides where they will have a much higher conversion rate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TQContent0 -
A Question for all Link Outreach Guys (Especially Blog Outreach)
Our SEO agency is considering hiring a new SEO consultant, specifically for outreach, with a strong focus on (quality) blog outreach. I know how many successful posting I expect to get per month doing the work myself, but I wanted to make sure that I expected realistic amounts from a new (already experienced) staff member (just to be fair to them!), Soooooo... I thought I would throw a question at other folks, and try to come up with a rough average number, to make sure I don't expect too much (or too little) from the new guy! Now, obviously this varies depending on niche etc, but I am just asking for an approx. average, using search queries like: _"blog posting guidelines" "[niche here]" _ (Plus using feedburner searches, etc... usual blog outreach tactics!) Also bear in mind that the outreacher will be based in the office, and content will be written for them by professional writers. The question is... As an experienced blog outreacher, based on the above info, how many successful posts would you expect to get per month, assuming a 35hr to 40hr work week (Mon-Fri). Cheers guys! I look forward to your opinions... I think it will be interesting to see how much the answers vary! UPDATE: - So far only Casey seems willing to share 🙂 Nobody else willing to chip in?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeGracia0 -
Quick URL structure question
Say you've got 5,000 articles. Each of these are from 2-3 generations of taxonomy. For example: example.com/motherboard/pc/asus39450 example.com/soundcard/pc/hp39 example.com/ethernet/software/freeware/stuffit294 None of the articles were SUPER popular as is, but they still bring in a bit of residual traffic combined. Few thousand or so a day. You're switching to a brand new platform. Awesome new structure, taxonomy, etc. The real deal. But, historically, you don't have the old taxonomy functions. The articles above, if created today, file under example.com/hardware/ This is the way it is from here on out. But what to do with the historical files? keep the original URL structure, in the new system. Readers might be confused if they try to reach example.com/motherboard, but at least you retain all SEO weight and these articles are all older anyways. Who cares? Grab some lunch. change the urls to /hardware/, and redirect everything the right way. Lose some rank maybe, but its a smooth operation, nice and neat. Grab some dinner. change the urls to /hardware/ DONT redirect, surprise Google with 5k articles about old computer hardware. Magical traffic splurge, go skydiving. Panic, cry into your pillow. Get job signing receipts at CostCo Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico0