Canonical code set up correctly?
-
Please let me know if this makes sense. I have a very limited knowledge of technical SEO but I am almost positive that my web developer did something wrong.
I have a wordpress blog and he did add canonical code to some of the pages. However he directs the site to the same URL! Does this mean that the canonical code is setup incorrectly and actually harming my SEO performance.
Also if I have one webpage with just the first paragraph of a blog post I wrote and a completely seperate page for the blog post itself, could this be considered duplicate content?
Thanks!!
-
Are you asking about a page that has a canonical link which is the same as the URL of the page? That is quite common, and not a problem. (Take a look at the source code of this page--you will see Moz has used a canonical that is the same as the URL.)
-
Interesting question!
Canonical tags are used to inform search engine about the preferred version of the website when there are two identical pages available on the website and removing anyone of them is not possible.
If the page is not identical to any other page on the website not having a canonical tag or canonical tag of the same URL make sense to me but if the page is identical to some other page that which is preferred then you should include the URL of that page.
For example:
http://www.example.com/543256 is a unique page on the website then not having a canonical tag or having one with the same URL in the code both make sense but if page is identical to another URL let’s say: http://www.example.com/abc and the 2nd version is the preferred version in that case the first page should contain the preferred URL in the code of the first page.
It is kind of confusing but let me know if you need more help in this regards.
--
If the first para of the blog post is available on one page and the whole blog post is available on the different page then in most cases this will not be considered as a duplicate content.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Base href + relative link href for canonical link
I have a site that in the head section we specify a base href being the domain with a trailing slash and a canonical link href being the relative link to the domain. <base <="" span="">href="http://www.domain.com/" /> href="link-to-page.html" rel="canonical" /> I know that Google recommends using an absolute path as a canonical link but is specifying a base href with a relative canonical link the same thing or is it still seen as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody16116990439410 -
Canonical vs 301 - Web Development
So I'm having a conversation with the development team at my work and I'm a little tired today so I thought I would ask for other opinions. The currently the site duplicates it's full site by having a 200 show with or without a trailing slash. I have asked for a 301 redirect to with the trailing slash. They countered with having all the rel=canonical be the trailing slash, which I know is acceptable. My issue is that while a rel=canonical is acceptable, since my site has a very high level of competition and a very aggressive link building strategy, I believe that it may be beneficial to have the 301 redirect. BUT, I may be wrong. When we're talking hundreds of thousands of links, I would love to have them directly linked instead of possibly splitting them up between a duplicate page that has a correct canonical. I'm curious to what everyone thinks though....
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattdinbrooklyn1 -
Can you expedite the correction of erroneous information on the Knowledge Graph?
I have a client who is a major player in the continuing education vertical. They have recently noticed that the Google Knowledge Graph is displaying erroneous information whenever somebody searches for their brand name (no matter the location/IP address). The brand Knowledge Graph is pulling information from a permanently closed location. Our client has multiple locations. Why Google decided to pull data from this particular (closed) location is beyond us. Our client has reclaimed the permanently closed location Google+ page and they are going to permanently delete it. However we are wondering if there is anyway to expedite the process of updating the Knowledge Graph. Is there anyway to submit feedback to Google about the KG? Is there anyway to request a Knowledge Graph correction? The erroneous "permanently closed" data is very embarrassing for our client.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
301s Or Stick With Canonical?
Hello all! A nice interesting one for you on this fine Friday... I have some pages which are accessible by 2 different urls - This is for user experience allowing the user to get to these pages in two different ways. To keep Google happy we have a rel canonical so that Google only sees one of these urls to avoid duplicates. After some SEO work I need to change both of these urls (on around 1,000 pages). Is the best way to do this... To 301 every old url to every new url Or... To not worry as I will just point the indexed pages to the new rel canonical? Any ideas or suggestions would be brilliant. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HB170 -
Should pages with rel="canonical" be put in a sitemap?
I am working on an ecommerce site and I am going to add different views to the category pages. The views will all have different urls so I would like to add the rel="canonical" tag to them. Should I still add these pages to the sitemap?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Canonical URL on search result pages
Hi there, Our company sells educational videos to Nurses via subscription. I've been looking at their video search results page:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 9868john
http://www.nursesfornurses.com.au/cpd When you click on a category, the URL appears like this:
http://www.nursesfornurses.com.au/cpd?view=category&cat=9&name=Acute+Surgical+Nursing
http://www.nursesfornurses.com.au/cpd?view=category&cat=6&name=Medications Would this be an instance where i'd use the canonical tag to redirect each search results page? Bearing in mind the /cpd page is under /Nursing cpd, and that /Nursing cpd is our best performing page in search engines, would it be better to refer it to the 'Nursing CPD' rather than 'CPD' page? Any advice is very welcome,
Thanks,
John0 -
What is the proper syntax for rel="canonical" ??
I believe the proper syntax is like this [taken from the SEOMoz homepage]: However, one of the sites I am working on has all of their canonical tags set up like this: I should clarify, not all of their canonicals are identical to this one, they simply use this naming convention, which appears to be relative URLs instead of absolute. Doesn't the entire URL need to be in the tag? If that is correct, can you also provide me with an explanation that I can give to management please? They hate it when I say "Because I said so!" LOL
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
Canonical / 301 Redundancy
Suppose I have two dynamic URLs that lead to the identical page: www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1 and www.example.com/product.php?y=1 The x=1 parameter had some historical meaning, but is now unused. All references to the x=1 parameter have been removed from internal links and sitemaps. I have implemented two solutions: First, the header of www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1 includes: Second, the .htaccess file includes the following: Redirect permanent /product.php?x=1&y=1 http://www.example.com/product.php?y=1 Questions: 1. I assume that since canonical is still relatively new, it's best to play it safe and implement both solutions. Is this correct? 2. When I point my browser to www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1, it does NOT redirect to www.example.com/product.php?y=1. The address bar continues to show the non-canonical URL. Is this because the canonical tag somehow takes precedence over the 301 redirect? 3. How long will Google Webmaster Tools continue to show these as duplicates, even though I've implemeted BOTH canonical and 301? It's been a few weeks and I thought it would have rolled off by now. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ahirai0