Should I add the canonical URL/homepage (http://www.domain.com) in the secured version of my home URL (https://www.domain.com)?
-
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks for the help George!
-
Hi,
I understand the question as: In the SSL (HTTPS) version of my homepage, should I add a rel=canonical link to the markup which points to the non SSL version of my homepage?
If your SSL pages are only accessible to authenticated users (i.e. not crawlers) then I can't see that it would make much difference as you won't suffer from duplicate content. However, if your SSL page is accessible to crawlers (as is becoming more common recently) then adding the canonical tag to non SSL is a good idea. In addition to preventing duplicate content issues, there's a good chance that your SSL page might get linked to, and blocking crawlers to it (using noindex / robots etc) means you won't get the benefits of those links.
One thing to bear in mind first is that you should decide on whether the single canonical version for your site is your HTTP or HTTPS pages. Then canonicalise accordingly.
George
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
-
Moving Pages Up a Folder to come off root domain
Good Morning I've been doing some competitor research to see why they're ranking higher than us and noticed that one who seems to be doing well has changed their url structure so that rather than being www.domain.com/product-category/product-subcategory/product-info-page/ they've removed levels so for instance they now have: www.domain.com/product-subcategory/ and www.domain.com/product-info-page/ basically everything seems to come off the root domain rather than having the traditional structure. Our rankings for the product-subcategory pages, which are probably what most people would search for, are just sitting below the first page in most instances and have been for a while I'm interested to know other people's thoughts and if this is an approach they've taken and had good results?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ham19790 -
Buying domains for the backlink profile: Still a white hat strategy?
There's a DR 51 domain we'd like to buy, with a quality backlink profile. We'd like to 301 redirect this domain to our DR 46 domain, and possibly setup something to make the user experience smooth for people expecting the old domain. Is this still a white hat strategy? How would you calculate the value/what kind of offer to make?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | catbur0 -
What is the difference between rel canonical and 301's?
Hi Guys I have been told a few times to add the rel canonical tag to my category pages - however every category page actually is different from the other - besides the listings that I have for my staff on each pages. Some of them specialise in areas that cross over in other areas - but over really if I'm re directing for eg: Psychic Readings over to Love and Relationships because 5 of my staff members are in both categories - the actual delivering of content and in depth of the actual category which skills are provided at different levels don't justify me creating a rel tag from Psychic Readings over to Love and Relationships just because i have 5 staff members listed under both categories. Tell me have I got this right or completely wrong? Here is an eg: Psychic Readings category https://www.zenory.com/psychic-readings And love and relationships category - https://www.zenory.com/love-relationships Hope this makes sense - I really look forward to your guys feedback! Cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Whay are low-quality exact match domains still ranking well for our biggest term?
There are a number of low-quality “exact-match” domains that are ranking well for the term “locum tenens”. I don’t want to specifically mention any sites, but there are some with poor content and very few quality backlinks that are on page one. The only reason I can see for them ranking so well is the fact that “locum” and/or “tenens” are in the URL. It’s very frustrating because we have worked hard to do all the right things (regular blogging, high-quality content, quality backlinks, etc.) to build our domain authority and page authority so they are better than these sites, yet they still out-rank us. Our site is www.bartonassociates.com. Could it have something to do with the term “locum tenens”, which is a latin phrase? Is it possible that because it is a latin term that it somehow slipped through the cracks and avoided the update that was supposed to eliminate this? If so, what can we do to get some justice?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ba_seomoz0 -
The purpose of these Algo updates: To more harshly push eCommerce sites toward PPC and enable normal blogs/forums toward reclaiming organic search positions?
Hi everyone, This is my first post here, and absolutely loving the site and the services. Just a quick background, I have dabbled in SEO in the past, and have been reading up over the last few months and am amazed at the speed at which things are changing. I currently have a few clients that I am doing some SEO work for 2 of them, and have had an ecommerce site enquire about SEO services. They are a medium sized oak furniture ecommerce site. From all the major changes..the devaluing of spam links, link networks, penalization of overuse of exact match anchor text and the overall encouraging of earned links (often via content marketing) over built links, adding to this the (not provided) section in Google Analytics, and the increasing screen real estate that PPC is getting over organic search...all points to me thinking on major thing..... That the search engine is trying to push eCommerce sites and sites that sell stuff harder toward using PPC and paid advertising and allowing the blogs/forums and informational sites to more easily reclaim the organic part of the search results again. The above is elaborated on a bit more below.. POINT 1 Firstly as built links (article submission, press releases, info graphic submission, web 2.0 link building ect) rapidly lose their effectiveness, and as Google starts to place more emphasis on sites earning links instead - by producing amazing interesting and unique content that people want to link to. The fact remains that surely Google is aware that it is much harder for eCommerce sites to produce a constant stream of interesting link worthy content around their niche (especially if its a niche that not an awful lot could be written about). Although earning links is not impossible for eCommerce sites, for a lot of them it is more difficult because creating link worthy content is not what eCommerce sites were originally intended for. Whereas standard blogs and forums were built for that exact purpose. Therefore the search engines must know that it is a lot easier for normal blogs/forums to "earn" links through content, therefore leading to them reclaiming more of the organic search ranking for transaction and non transaction terms, and therefore forcing the eCommerce sites to adopt PPC more heavily. POINT 2 If we add to the mix the fact that for the terms most relevant to eCommerce sites, the search engine results page has a larger allocation of PPC ads than organic results (above the fold), and that Google has limited the amount of data that sites can see in terms of which keywords people are using to arrive on their sites, which effects eCommerce sites more - as it makes it harder for them to see which keywords are resulting in sales. Then this provides further evidence that Google is trying to back eCommerce sites into a corner by making it more difficult for them to make sense of and track sales from organic results in comparison to with PPC, where data is still plentiful. Conclusion Are the above just over exaggerations? Can most eCommerce sites still keep achieving a good percentage of sales from organic search despite the above? if so, what do the more niche eCommerce sites do to "earn" links when content topics are thin and unique outreach destinations can be exhausted quickly. Do they accept the fact that the are in the business of selling things, so should be paying for their traffic as opposed to normal blogs/forums which are not. Or is there still a place for them to get even more creative with content and acquire earned links..? And finally, is the concentration on earned links more overplayed than it actually is? Id really appreciate your thoughts on this..
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sanj50500 -
Blog on 2 domains (.org/.com), Canonical to Solve?
I have a client that has moved a large majority of content to their .org domain, including the blog. This is causing some issues for the .com domain. I want to retain the blog on the .org and have it's content also show on the .com. I would place the canonical tag on the .com Is this possible? Is this recommended?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ngst0 -
Penguin Update or URL Error - Rankings Tank
I just redid my site from Godaddy Quick Shopping Cart to Drupal. The site is much cleaner now. I transferred all the content. Now my site dropped from being in the top ten on almost every key word we were targeting to 35+. I "aliased" the urls so that they were the same as the Godaddy site. However when I look at our search results I notice that our URLs have extra wording at the end like this: ?categoryid=1 or some other number. Could this be the reason that our rankings tanked? Previously on the godaddy site the results didnt show this.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | chronicle0