Appropriate Use of Canonical Tag
-
Hello,
I am creating study guides for books with tabbed elements for each study guide.
For example, for Othello, I'd have 3 tabs like so:
1. Overview page = xyz.com/othello
2. Context = xyz.com/othello/context
3. Characters = xyz.com/othello/characters
I noticed that YouTube channels have tabbed elements and use the canonical. For example, all of the tabbed sections on https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist/channels have this canonical http://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist">
In my case, would it be a correct use of the canonical tag to include rel="canonical" href = http://xyz.com/othello on each of the tabbed pages?
Also, where exactly in the header should the canonical be placed? Before or after open graph / twitter cards?
-
Hi Jason,
I would definitely not canonicalise between the three+ URLs about one text unless those URLs contain identical information. Since they won't be identical (one will be plot, one characters, etc. as you say earlier in the thread), I would not canonicalise. You will result in content such as that on characters not being indexed or crawled. The site is therefore probably less likely to rank for queries like [othello characters] if the characters page has a canonical tag on it, pointing to the plot summary page.
Without having seen the site or mock-ups, I believe you would be safe to use separate URLs for each area of study surrounding one topic.
However, you could indeed put all this content on one page and use tabs to switch between the content, given that it is too long to fit nicely on one page. The tabs should be operated by CSS, and all the text (plot summary, characters, context) would be in the source code upon page load. People would click between tabs to read it. This is not considered cloaking or hiding content, although I would avoid doing this if the content for each section is particularly lengthy. I doubt it would get you in trouble, but if you are creating substantial content for each area of study, this would work well on separate URLs _without _canonicalising to one particular page, as per your original structure.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I'd recommend using pagination over canonicals.
Refer to this post to learn how to implement them.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
Again, if the content is all on one page, partitioned into separate tabs, then there's no need for canonicals or anything else for that matter. You can configure your tabs so the overview is the default tab, the one that displays on entry to the page.
If the page becomes too lengthy or takes to long to load, then another option is to split it onto separate URLs and use page (rel=next and rel=prev) tags to relate them.
-
There is way too much content to fit onto one page - that is why I am using the tabular format. The question is should the content in all tabs be on the same URL or different URLs? And if different URLs should I use the canonical?
-
In my opinion, the content would ideally be located on the same page.
You have to balance that with the length of the content and the ability of the page to load quickly. Assuming you can get it all on one page, then you don't need canonical tags.
-
So I am laying the content out in tabular format. This actually leads to another question - should each tab be a separate URL or all on the same URL? Perhaps by keeping everything on the same URL this would also solve my canonical issue?
-
So the issue is that the content within each tab is definitely not duplicate but related. Ie one tab might be the plot summary while another tab consists of character descriptions. Ideally, I think the best user experience would be for all users to start on the overview though. So given that the content in each tab is NOT duplicate but it would be a better user experience to start at the overview, should I use canonical or is it safer to just leave it out?
-
I think I'm not understanding something. Why do you want to partition the content onto three pages? Why not just lay out the content so it displays in a tabular format? That way you don't have to worry about canonicalizing or paginating the content at all.
if you are concerned about page load tomes, then if would consider pagination instead. This post is an excellent resource for how (and when) to do that.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
The example you stated would prevent context and character tabs from being indexed in search engines. If these are unique content, you should reconsider because canonical was originally created for multiple urls with identical information. Place the tag anywhere in the header.
-
If those pages are essentially duplicate content, then you should use a canonical. If you Google to index each of those pages separately, and return each one in search results, then you should not use one. Do you want people who search for text that matches your context and character tabs closely to be linked directly into those tabs, or should they always start at the overview page? If they should always start at the overview, you can try the canonical tags. Be aware that if the page contents aren't very similar, Google may ignore these.
Anywhere in the is fine, it doesn't matter where you place it.
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
-
Importance (or lack of) Meta keywords tags and Tags in Drupal
I'm wondering should I put any effort in making Meta Keywords tags for my pages or normal Tags (they're separate in Drupal), since apparently first are not considered by most of search engines, while not sure about normal tags. Obviously SERPS has to determine partial valu of the page by content, thus consider keywords / tags to some extend. What's your opinion on that. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Optimal_Strategies1 -
Are there any downsides to using a canonical tag temporarily?
I'm working on redesigning our website. One of the content types has a main archive page (/success-stories) containing all of the success stories (written by graduates of our program). Because we plan to have success stories for other people (non-graduates), I'm using category hierarchies (/success-stories/graduates and success-stories/nonprofits, for example). It will go one level deeper to organize graduates by graduation year (/success-stories/graduates/%year%). I think this will work out well. However, we won't have non-graduate success stories for a little while, probably at least a few weeks, which means that /success-stories and /.../graduates indices will contain the same content for a while. So my question is this: Will it hurt to use a canonical tag that points to /success-stories/graduates as the authority until the main archive page contains more than just graduates? Or would it be better to use a 302 redirect from /success-stories to /.../graduates until more diverse content is added?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bcaples0 -
Long Title Tags
Hi guys, We have product e-commerce title tags which are over 60 characters - around 80 plus. The reason we added them in there is to incorporate
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork214
more information for Google. The format of these title tags are: Name + Colour + Rug Type + Origin Name = for people searching for the name of the rug
Color = people searching for a specific color
Type = The type of rug (e.g. normal or designer)
Origin = Where the rug is for. So this title will cover people searching for: People searching for designer rugs, the specific colour and also where it comes from. This then results in the title tag going way over 60 characters - around 80-90 characters. -- Would it be wise to try and shrink it down to under 60 characters, and what would be a good approach to do this? Cheers.0 -
How (or if) to apply re canonical tags to Shopify?
Anyone familiar with Shopify will understand the problems of their directory structure. Every time you add a product to a 'collection' it essentially creates a duplicate. For example... https://www.domain.com/products/product-slim-regular-bikini may also appear as: https://www.domain.com/collections/all/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/bikinis/products/product-slim-regular-bikini etc, etc It's not uncommon to have up to six duplicates of each product. So my question is twofold: Firstly, should I worry about this from an SEO point of view? I understand the desire to minimise potential duplicate content issues and also in focussing the 'juice' on just one page per product. But I also planned on trying to build the authority of the collection pages. If I request Google not to index the product pages which link off the collections, does this not devalue these collections pages? Secondly, I understand the correct way to fix these is using 'rel canonical' tags, but I'm not clear about HOW to actually do this. Shopify support has not been very helpful. They have provided two different instructions, so just added to the confusion (see below). Shopify instruction #1: Add the following to the theme.liquid file... <title><br />{{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz
{% if page_description %} {% endif %} Shopify instruction #2: Add the following to each individual product page... So, can anyone help clarify: The best strategic approach to this inherent SEO issue with Shopify (besides moving to another platform!)? and If 'rel canonical' tags is the way to go, exactly where and how to apply them? Regards, Murray1 -
Using a Sub Domain as a Main Domain?
Hi, I'm working on a site at the moment and the sub domain is acting as the main domain. This occurred when the site was redesigned and built on a sub domain for testing but it was never moved to the main domain when it went live (a couple of years ago). So little or no pages are live on domain.com but all on sub.domain.com. It's a large company but they have very poor rankings. Would you recommend that they move the sub domain back into the root folder? Does this involve renaming/re-pointing URLs? Thanks Louise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MVIreland1 -
Two pages on same domain - Is this a proper use of the canonical tag?
I have a domain with two pages in question--one is an article with 2,000 words and the other is a FAQ with 300 words. The 300 word FAQ is copied, word-for-word and pasted inside of the 2,000 word article. Would it be a proper use of the canonical tag to point the smaller, 300 word FAQ at the 2,000 word article? Since the 300 word article is identical to a portion of the 2,000 word article, will Google see this as duplicate content? Thanks in advance for any helpful insight.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andrewv0 -
Canonical referencing and aspx
The following pages of my website all end up at the same place:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IPROdigital
http://example.com/seo/Default.aspx
http://example.com/SEO/
http://example.com/seo
http://example.com/sEo
http://example.com/SeO but we have a really messy URL structure throughout the website. I would like to have a neat URL structure, including for offline marketing so customers can easily memorize or even guess the URL. I'm thinking of duplicating the pages and canonical referencing the original ones with the messy URLs instead of a 301 redirect (done for each individual page of course), because the latter will likely result in a traffic drop. We've got tens of thousands of URLs; some active and some inactive. Bearing in mind that thousands of links already point in to the site and even a small percentage drop in traffic would be a serious problem given low industry margins and high marketing spend, I'd love to hear opinions of people who have encountered this issue and found it problematic or successful. @randfish to the rescue. I hope.0 -
Meta keywords vs tags
On a blog from an SEO perspective how do you choose keywords to use in the "meta keyword tag" vs. "post tags"? Will it be different based on the search volume/competition of the keywords targeted?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | saravanans0