Rel="canonical" link should they be to or from an "SEO friendly" url
-
Thanks for taking the time to review this.
So for our example, lets use the following SEO friendly link:
We'll call this link the SEO VERSION
The title of the college is" Pacific Christian College of Minstry and Biblical Studies"
The title of the program is "BA Biblical Studies"
The QUERY version of the link to this page would be something like:
Keep in mind that the meta title, description, and keyword tags for the page are all administerable
The SEO VERSION is automatically created from the title of the college, and the title of the program. Each one of these titles can be overidden with a URL slug individually. For instance, the admin could make the link:
by changing the slug for the college to "pacific-christian-college-of-ministry" and the slug for the program to "biblical-studies". Let's call this version the SLUG VERSION
So now we have multiple ways to get to the same content. The question on the table is what is best practice for the rel="canonical" link to keep from getting dinged for duplicate content.
Let's say that our SEO VERSION is the canonical link for 1 year. Then the choice was made to optimize the links thru the slugs creating the SLUG VERSION. My assumption is that we would keep the SEO VERSION as the canonical link.
But then let's say 6 months later that the title of the program is changed in the admin. Now the SEO VERSION has changed and so has the canonical link. Do we lose the link juice garnered over the last 18 months?
It would seem to me, that if we use the QUERY version as the canonical link, then any optimizations or changes affect everything except the canonical link, thus keeping the previous link juice earned. But is having an ugly URL as the canonical link detrimental to SEO?
Please advise.
-
Jeff's spot on. Come up with the briefest visitor readable URL that fits the proper understanding of the page identity along with its hierarchical relationship to content above it in that funnel. That's the URL that should be referenced in the canonical tag as well as links pointing to the page. If for some reason months or years later that URL needs to change (because the program name changes for some reason for example), then make that change and implement a 301 redirect to that new URL to pass any previously accumulated link value.
-
Robert-
My advice: use the URL structure for the canonical link that does not contain the name-value pairs, such as:
http://www.domain.com/URL-structure/avoid-name-value-pairs/Don't use the more complicated one like this:
http://www.domain.com/search-query-result.php?id=123&page=42&query=should-you-avoid-name-value-pairs-in-SEO-urlsInstead, go with a short, human readable URL for your canonical link, and you'll have better results.
Here's why I'm making this recommendation:
In the Moz.com guide to the basics of SEO: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development, I'd recommend looking at their URL Construction Guidelnes:
Go static
The best URLs are human readable without lots of parameters, numbers and symbols. Using technologies like mod_rewrite for Apache and ISAPI_rewrite for Microsoft, you can easily transform dynamic URLs like this http://moz.com/blog?id=123 into a more readable static version like this: http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor. Even single dynamic parameters in a URL can result in lower overall ranking and indexing.
According to Google's Official Google Webmaster Central blog:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html"static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls"
Myth: "Dynamic URLs are okay if you use fewer than three parameters."
Fact: There is no limit on the number of parameters, but a good rule of thumb would be to keep your URLs shortHope this helps!
-- Jeff
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
-
Number of internal links and passing 'link juice' down to key pages.
Howdy Moz friends. I've just been checking out this post on Moz from 2011 and wanted to know how relevant it is today? I'm particularly interested in a number of links we have on our HP potentially harming important landing page rankings because not enough 'link juice is getting to them i.e) are they are being diluted by all the many other links on the page? (deeper pages, faqs, etc etc) It seems strange to me that as Google as has got more sophisticated this would still be that relevant (thus the reason for posting). Anyway, I thought I was definitely worth asking. If we can leverage more out of our on-page efforts then great 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
On page links
Hi I am really intrigued by Bloomberg strategy. if you look at their article pages they are full with internal links done with what I assume to be an automated process (too many pages to be done manually). it seems to work for them. I would love to hear your opinions.
On-Page Optimization | | ciznerguy
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-26/uber-said-close-to-raising-funding-at-up-to-40b-value.html0 -
Similar URLs
I'm making a site of LSAT explanations. The content is very meaningful for LSAT students. I'm less sure the urls and headings are meaningful for Google. I'll give you an example. Here are two URLs and heading for two separate pages: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-1/q-10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10 http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning II, Q10 There are two logical reasoning sections on LSAT 69. For the first url is for question 10 from section 1, the second URL is for question 10 from the second LR section. I noticed that google.com only displays 23 urls when I search "site:http://lsathacks.com". A couple of days ago it displayed over 120 (i.e. the entire site). 1. Am I hurting myself with this structure, even if it makes sense for users? 2. What could I do to avoid it? I'll eventually have thousands of pages of explanations. They'll all be very similar in terms of how I would categorize them to a human, e.g. "LSAT 52, logic games question 12" I should note that the content of each page is very different. But url, title and h1 is similar. Edit: I could, for example, add a random keyword to differentiate titles and urls (but not H1). For example: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10-car-efficiency/ LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10, Car efficiency But the url is already fairly long as is. Would that be a good idea?
On-Page Optimization | | graemeblake0 -
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
On-Page Optimization | | Bush_JSM0 -
Internal Followed Links and Total Internal Links as 1
It is showing Internal Followed Links and Total Internal Links as 1 in OpenSiteExplorer Tool http://www.expresscasket.com/ http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.expresscasket.com Not able to understand and identify the problem and fix it. But when i check in google webmasters tool, it is showing lots of internal links. Does it differ those internal links and your trace of internal links
On-Page Optimization | | expresscasket0 -
Do I need canonical link on target page?
I've placed in my head tag on duplicate content pages, but do i need to place it on the target page such as http://www.example.com/index.html too?
On-Page Optimization | | CaliB0 -
References and SEO?
Hi Everyone, I am really new to the SEO world (having come from paid search), so if this is a stupid question, I apologize. I noticed in Webmaster Tools that the top 25 keywords or so that Google thinks my site is about are keywords pulled from our references pages. Our site has a ton of authoritative content, most of which have corresponding reference pages with overlapping sources. Is this a problem? I am a little concerned that the keywords Google thinks are the most relevant to my site are really the least relevant. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks! nina
On-Page Optimization | | dirigodev0 -
Link cannibalization
My on page report card gives me an "A" in every category but "link cannibalization". The key word is I am targeting is "home care". It says my links to "home care blog" and "in home care agency locator" are cannibalizing my home page. Am I indeed causing problems by using these modified versions of the keyword? Also is it okay to have the link "home care" for the home link in the main navigation bar? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | mmaes0