Using unique content from "rel=canonical"ized page
-
Hey everyone, I have a question about the following scenario:
Page 1: Text A, Text B, Text C
Page 2 (rel=canonical to Page 1): Text A, Text B, Text C, Text D
Much of the content on page 2 is "rel=canonical"ized to page 1 to signalize duplicate content. However, Page 2 also contains some unique text not found in Page 1.
How safe is it to use the unique content from Page 2 on a new page (Page 3) if the intention is to rank Page 3?
Does that make any sense?
-
Yeah, I tend to agree with Maximilian and Mike - I'm not clear on the use-case scenario here and, technically, pages 1 and 2 aren't duplicated. Rel=canonical probably will still work, in most cases, and will keep page 2 from looking like a duplicate (and from ranking), but I'd like to understand the situation better.
If Google did honor the canonical tag on page 2, then the duplication between pages 2 and 3 shouldn't be a problem. I'm just thinking there may be a better way.
-
Technically Page 1 would contain the subset of Page 2's superset except that Page 1 is likely older, ranking better and the page you want to keep so would take precedence. In which case Page 2's content would be considered as duplicating Page 1's superset of content and Page 2 should be canonicalized to Page 1. Of course, Rel=Canonical is a suggestion not a directive so the search engines reserve the right to not listen to it if they feel the tag isn't relevant.
The real question here would be why are you reusing all of that copy and would those pages be better served with more unique content instead of continuing to reuse and canonicalize?
-
Hey Mak,
One thing to bear in mind is that the canonical tag should be used on pages with the same content, if there is extra content on Page 2 that doesn't appear on Page 1, then Google could ignore the canonical tag al together:
_TheÂ
rel="canonical"Â attribute should be used only to specify the preferred version of many pages with identical content (although minor differences, such as sort order, are okay).
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
-
Best Practices for Creating Back Links from "Thought Leader" Content
What is the best way to use articles from a "thought leader" to build high-quality links to my website? I have heard that it is possible to pay bloggers to post business articles that link back to a website. That assuming these blogs have domain authority this is a good technique to improve ranking. Is this in fact true, and if so where would I find blogs to post our content. The purpose would be to promote real estate brokerage website. Any suggestions? Is this possible, advisable, best use of quality content? Alternatively, where else can we post engaging content to create links back to our site? Social media? The nature of the content would be such topics as how to find the best value in Manhattan office of loft space rentals, etcera. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Best to Fix Duplicate Content Issues on Blog If URLs are Set to "No-Index"
Greetings Moz Community: I purchased a  SEMrush subscription recently and used it to run a site audit. The audit detected 168 duplicate content issues mostly relating to blog posts tags. I suspect these issues may be due to canonical tags not being set up correctly. My developer claims that since these blog URLs are set to "no-index" these issues do not need to be corrected. My instinct would be to avoid any risk with potential duplicate content. To set up canonicalization correctly. In addition, even if these pages are set to "no-index" they are passing page rank. Further more I don't know why a reputable company like SEMrush would consider these errors if in fact they are not errors. So my question is, do we need to do anything with the error pages if they are already set to "no-index"? Incidentally the site URL is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. I am attaching a copy of the  SEMrush audit. Thanks, Alan BarjWaO SqVXYMy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
How do I use public content without being penalized for duplication?
The NHTSA produces a list of all recalls for automobiles. In their "terms of use" it states that the information can be copied. I want to add that to our site, so there is an up-to-date list for our audience to see. However, I'm just copying and pasting. I'm allowed to according to NHTSA, but google will probably flag it right? Is there a way to do this without being penalized? Thanks, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
New site, new URL, lots of custom content. Load it all or "trickle" it over time?
New site, new URL, lots of custom content. Load it all or "trickle" it over time? Would it make a difference in terms of ranking the site? Interested in your thoughts. Thanks! BBuck!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBuck0 -
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 -
Should I "NoIndex" Pages with Almost no Unique Content
I have a real estate site with MLS data (real estate listings shared across the Internet by Realtors, which means data exist across the Internet already). Important pages are the "MLS result pages" - the pages showing thumbnail pictures of all properties for sale in a given region or neighborhood. 1 MLS result page may be for a region and another for a neighborhood within the region:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi5
example.com/region-name and example.com/region-name/neighborhood-name
So all data on the neighborhood page will be 100% data from the region URL. Question: would it make sense to "NoIndex" such neighborhood page, since it would reduce nr of non-unique pages on my site and also reduce amount of data which could be seen as duplicate data? Will my region page have a good chance of ranking better if I "NoIndex" the neighborhood page? OR, is Google so advanced they know Realtors share MLS data and worst case simple give such pages very low value, but will NOT impact ranking of other pages on a website? I am aware I can work on making these MLS result pages more unique etc, but that isn't what my above question is about. thank you.0 -
Canonicals: use when page has same listings, but displayed very differently?
Say you have a listing of movies. In that listing, there are 5 different view types. One has the scenes broken out. Another has only the box covers. Two of the views have movie descriptions, but others don't. Still, the listings themselves are the same, and you only want the default view to be indexed. Is it appropriate to use canonicals in this case? The alternative is to noindex the other views, but the site already has rankings and deep links. If Google does see the pages as unique and we apply a canonical, could we be penalized or would they merely ignore it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LahomaManagement0 -
Should "View All Products" be the canonical page?
We currently have "view 12" as the default setting when someone arrives to www.mysite.com/subcategory-page.aspx. We have been advised to change the default to "view all products" and make that the canonical page to ensure all of our products get indexed. My concern is that doing this will increase the page load time and possibly hurt rankings. Does it make sense to change all our our subcategory pages to show all the products when someone visits the page? Most sites seem to have a smaller number of products as the default.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt0
