Canonical Help (this is a nightmare)
-
Hi, We're new to SEO and trying to fix our domain canonical issue. A while back we were misusing the "link canonical" tag such that Google was tracking params (e.g. session ids, tagging ) all as different unique urls. This created a nightmare as now Google thinks there's millions of pages associated with our domain when the reality is really a couple thousand unique links.
Since then, we've tried to fix this by: 1) specifying params to ignore via SEO webmasters 2) properly using the canonical tag.
-
However, I'm still recognizing there's a bunch of outsanding search results that resulted from this mess. Any idea on expectation on when we'd see this cleaned up?
-
I'm also recognizing that google is looking at http://domain.com and https://domain.com as 2 different pages even though we specify to only look at "http://domain.com" via the link canonical tag. Again, is this just a matter of waiting for Google to update its results? We submitted a site map but it seems like it's taking forever for the results of our site to clear up...
Any help or insight would greatly be appreciated!
-
-
What I do when I want to get an idea of how frequently Google crawls a page is I look at when it was last crawled. If the cached date was a long time ago, Google probably doesn't crawl it that often. If it was recently cached, it could mean a more frequent crawl—but it also might be that I just caught it at the right time. So I look at a few similar pages to see if they agree.
(To see when a page was cached, do a search on the URL of the page in question—just put the URL right in the search box. In the results, look next to the green URL in the result which is the page you searched for and there is a little green triangle. Click that, and you will see "cached." Choose that, and it will bring up the version of the page that Google has cached, along with the date it was cached.)
Don't worry too much. Even without your fixes, Google will figure out the situation on its own and start showing a preferred URL anyway. But yes, it is generally a good choice to show yourself in the best light and follow best practices to make things as easy as possible for Google.
-
There is no specific, hard set, predefined "time" between crawls that applies to all sites.
It varies, from site to site.
It varies from page to page.
It is based on Popularity.
If your page/site is not popular - then it will take longer till it is crawled again.
-
Thanks for a response.
What's a 'normal' wait time -- 2 days? 7 days? 14 days? How do I know when to try again?
-
If you've changed your canonical tag, but Google hasn't updated its index, there's nothing more you can do till you see what effect it has. Wait a few days and post again with your results. If something's out of order, at least we have another data set to compare it to.
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
-
Is Google ignoring my canonicals?
Hi, We have rel=canonical set up on our ecommerce site but Google is still indexing pages that have rel=canonical. For example, http://www.britishbraces.co.uk/braces/novelty.html?colour=7883&p=3&size=599 http://www.britishbraces.co.uk/braces/novelty.html?p=4&size=599 http://www.britishbraces.co.uk/braces/children.html?colour=7886&mode=list These are all indexed but all have rel=canonical implemented. Can anyone explain why this has happened?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HappyJackJr0 -
Help in Internal Links
Which link attribute should be given to internal links of website? Do follow or No follow and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Need help understanding "Clone sites"
I just read an article about Panda and it warned against against Clone sites: "Clone sites are a strong panda factor (JM, Mar 10, 2014)" I don't have any clone sites, but there are dozens of sites with imitations of mine. We were the first in the area of interest, and then all these other sites that imitated us popped up. None are exact replicas. But many have spun some of our articles and used them to create their sites; the site structures are not identical though. Google seems to know we are the original site on the topic since we are ranked #1 for most terms. Would these be considered clone sites in their eyes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0 -
Is this all that is needed for a 'canonical' tag?
Hello, I have a Joomla site. I have put in a plugin to make the page source show: eg. <link href="[http://www.ditalia.com.au/designer-fabrics-designer-fabric-italian-material-and-french-lace](view-source:http://www.ditalia.com.au/designer-fabrics-designer-fabric-italian-material-and-french-lace)" rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" /> Is this all that is need to tell the search engines to ignore the any other links or indexed pages with a url which is created automatically by the system before the SEF urls are initiated?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | infinart0 -
Use of Rel=Canonical
I have been pondering whether I am using this tag correctly or not. We have a custom solution which lays out products in the typical eCommerce style with plenty of tick box filters to further narrow down the view. When I last researched this it seemed like a good idea to implement rel=canonical to point all sub section pages at a 'view-all' page which returns all the products unfiltered for that given section. Normally pages are restricted down to 9 results per page with interface options to increase that. This combined with all the filters we offer creates many millions of possible page permutations and hence the need for the Canonical tag. I am concerned because our view-all pages get large, returning all of that section's product into one place.If I pointed the view-all page at say the first page of x results would that defeat the object of the view-all suggestion that Google made a few years back as it would require further crawling to get at all the data? Alternatively as these pages are just product listings, would NoIndex be a better route to go given that its unlikely they will get much love in Google anyway?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | motiv80 -
How can I improve my rankings in Google with help of seomoz
Hey guys, I have joined seomoz today and set up campaigns for my sites. I got reports about keyword rankings, errors, notices etc. But I am still confused about how to use seomoz in order to improve my rankings. My point is does seomoz provides any services for improving position in google or simply seomoz provides only reporting? These reports are good but my ultimate goal to join seomoz is to improve my rankings for my each website and each post. Please help. BJ
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intmktcom0 -
Canonical or 301 redirect, that is the question?
So my site has duplicate content issues because of the index.html and the www and non www version of the site. What's the best way to deal with this without htaccess? Is it a 301 redirect or is it the canonical, or is it both?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Do links in the nav bar help SEO?
If I am building a Nav bar should I use my keywords or make it easier for the user to find what they are looking for. IMO one should ALWAYS make a site based on user experience. If it Google and other SEs do count Nav links, would it be best to place more important keys first?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0