Adding a Canonical Tag to each page referencing itself?

[rpaiva]

Hey Mozers!

I've noticed that on www.Zappos.com they have a Canonical tag on each page referencing it self.  I have heard that this is a popular method but I dont see the point in canon tagging a page to its self.

Any thoughts?

[JulesGCC]

Forgive me if this is a silly question, but does this mean you would need to go and identify all the urls with extra parameters, and add canonical tag pointing to the primary url?

Coz if so, that would be an extremly labourious task, no? Some of my duplicate issues, have 50+ urls that are being counted as 'duplicates'.

There must be a better way, hence, I fear this must be a silly question...  

[Sheena_Schleicher]

The self-referencing canonical tags should only be for your actual preferred URLs. So if www.testwebsite.com/duplicate is a duplicate because of parameters (for example), then no, it should not have the self-referencing canonical tag - it should have a canonical tag pointing to the preferred URL should (www.testwebsite.com/ in this case, which would have the self-ref tag).

Zappos example:

• http://www.zappos.com/beyond-yoga-women-shirts-tops~1 (self-ref canonical tag)
• http://www.zappos.com/beyond-yoga-women-shirts-tops~1#!/beyond-yoga-women-shirts-tops/CKvXARDL1wFSAv0eegLgBIIBAukjwAEB4gIFGAECCg8.zso   (canonical tag points to unfiltered page)

If www.testwebsite.com/duplicate is a static page that you want indexed, but that has the same content as www.testwebsite.com/, then the solution is updating/adding content to be unique (then applying the self-ref canonical tags to both URLs which are now unique).

Make sense?

[webmethod]

I've not come across any reason ever that would give cause to be concerned about losing Page Authority by having a page canonical to itself.

[rpaiva]

Well it was more so a concern for me applying this method to my own site more so than a concern for Zappos getting flagged lol

Im curious to know would it do anything at all to the page Authority if you have it Canon tagged to itself?

[webmethod]

No need to be concerned. Aside from all the really well documented best practices on canonicals, in your original question you've spotted at least one big site that does this. They pay the SEO big bucks and rank well.

[rpaiva]

I would assume that by having each page canon tag itself your basically telling google "Hey I am aware that this is a duplicate but treat it as its own page and not as a version of another".  My concern is by doing so your losing potential Page Authority

example:

www.testwebsite.com  ---Canonionical--- www.testwebsite.com

www.testwebsite.com/duplicate ---Canonical --- www.testwebsite.com/duplicate

[webmethod]

Yes this is a good idea as it's a catch all for URLs that might include tracking URL parameters, or other parameters that don't affect the page content. When there are no tracking parameters, it's going to be more development and testing work to hide the canonical, when having it there doesn't cause any issues. It's also quite a brutal but effective catch all if your page was accidentally accessible via other URLs - e.g. non-www or https.

George

[Sheena_Schleicher]

Moz.com does this as well and you may also see an "Insight" in your Moz Analytics account recommending site-wide implementation 'to prevent any unforeseen duplicate content issues.' I have started following this practice since it really can't hurt & sometimes dup content pops up in the weirdest, most 'unforeseen' ways.