Safely change canonical URL many times
-
Hi,
We are actually working on a new product information section for our network of websites (site A, B, C and D) where product landing pages allow to download information in pdf format and are active for downloads during a period of two months (active form for commercial reasons) with a unique URL (the case today). Here is a possible scenario for these product landing pages in the near future:
-
Product is promoted in website A during 2 months (January to February) so canonical URL = A/page. Once expired, the product info. download form disappears.
-
Customer decides to promote the same product in the same site A as well in site B from April to May so canonical URL will still be A/page. Canonical URL of B/page will point to A/page.
-
Customer decides to relaunch his product promotion this time in site C from July to August so canonical URLs of pages A/page and B/page will now point to C/page as the latter will be the only product campaign active with a download form
-
At the end of the year the customer does another campaign for the same product this time in website D so we will change the canonical URL of pages A/page, B/page and C/page to D/page as the latter will be the only product campaign active with a download form
The obvious question here is: will this way of changing canonical URLs dynamically hurt the SEO of the section, pages, one particular website or the whole network ?
Would it be better and safer to just keep the first canonical URL forever? A/page in this example
Thanks so much for your input on this.
-
-
Hi Julien. Got it. The method you're describing sounds contradictory to the designed uses of canonical and as such will be difficult to make work in this approach. Here's a few reasons...
- You're relying on the search engines to recognize the changes and apply them in a distinct time frame. While Google tends to be quick there's no guarantee that the changes will be applied in a fashion that lines up with your campaign dates.
- The thing you want to make canonical (the product) is moving from location to location. Canonical is specifically an attribute for URLs and ones that are supposed to stay static. It seems like it would make more sense to have the product be on a dedicated, canonical URL and just change the promotion around it.
- A redirect could better serve your purposes. With conditional time frames and offers you're probably best served by using 302 redirects.
Cheers!
-
Hi Ryan, thanks for you answer. Sites A, B, C and D are verticals usually in a same industry (let's say pubs, hotels and restaurants that belong to the hospitality industry). They all cover different areas with original editorial content but product information (usually technical papers, case studies, etc.) can be the same and apply for any of those verticals. Therefore, a client can run a campaign for its product on site A one month and then on site C two months after. The main goal of moving canonical URLs is having the latest campaign URL indexed by search engines so we deliver results to the client for the latest campaign he is paying for (site C/product_page) and not the original campaign he did months ago (site A/product_page).
We know this is a particular way to do things but that's why we ask for advise.
Cheers.
-
The central idea of canonical is that it's the source while the iterations are iterations... so I'd avoid moving canonical around. What you're also is describing within your network is a little hard for me to wrap my head around. Why are sites A, B, C, and D different? Are they localized? Are they in different verticals? Are they talking to different channels or interests? If there are differences like these the content should likely be unique enough to address the different market being served by the different site.
If not selecting one as your resource center and handling campaigns as campaign variables seems like the way to go, ergo: Site A/Resources. Link from Site B = Site A/Resources?v=campaign_ids_promotions_timing_etc. Google even has a tool for doing just this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867. And why this is helpful here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863. Cheers!
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
-
I need help on how best to do a complicated site migration. Replacing certain pages with all new content and tools, and keeping the same URL's. The rest just need to disappear safely. Somehow.
I'm completely rebranding a website but keeping the same domain. All content will be replaced and it will use a different theme and mostly new plugins. I've been building the new site as a different site in Dev mode on WPEngine. This means it currently has a made-up domain that needs to replace the current site. I know I need to somehow redirect the content from the old version of the site. But I'm never going to use that content again. (I could transfer it to be a Dev site for the current domain and automatically replace it with the click of a button - just as another option.) What's the best way to replace blahblah.com with a completely new blahblah.com if I'm not using any of the old content? There are only about 4 URL'st, such as blahblah.com/contact hat will remain the same - with all content replaced. There are about 100 URL's that will no longer be in use or have any part of them ever used again. Can this be done safely?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brickbatmove1 -
Canonical URL's searchable in Google?
Hi - we have a newly built site using Drupal, and Drupal likes to create canonical tags on pretty much everything, from their /node/ url's to the URL Alias we've indicated. Now, when I pull a moz crawl report, I get a huge list of all the /node/ plus other URL's. That's beside the point though... Question: when I directly enter one of the /node/ url's into a google search, a result is found. Clicking on it redirects to the new URL, but should Google even be finding these non-canonical URL's?? I don't feel like I've seen this before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
How and When Should I use Canonical Url Tags?
Pretty new to the SEO universe. But I have not used any canonical tags, just because there is not definitive source explaining exactly when and why you should use them??? Am I the only one who feels this way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | greenrushdaily0 -
Redirect to url with parameter
I have a wiki (wiki 1) where many of the pages are well index in google. Because of a product change I had to create a new wiki (wiki 2) for the new version of my product. Now that most of my customers are using the new version of my product I like to redirect the user from wiki 1 to wiki 2. An example of a redirect could be from wiki1.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen to wiki2.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen. Because of a technical issue the url I redirect to, needs to have a parameter like "?" so the example will be wiki2.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen? Will the search engines see it as I have two pages with same content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Debitoor
wiki2.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen
and
wiki2.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen? And will the SEO juice from wiki1.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen be transfered to wiki2.website.com/how_to_build_kitchen?0 -
CHange insite Urls structure
Hello Guys! I have a situation with a website and I need some opinions. Today, the structured of my site is: (I have had this site architecture since many years) Main country home (www.mysite.com.tld) o Product_1 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product1/) § Product_1 articles www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_art1 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_art2 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_artx o Product_2 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product2/) § Product_2 articles www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_art1 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_art2 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_artx I have several TLDs with their main and their products. We are thinking in modify this structure and begin to use subdomains for each product (The IT guys need this approach because is simpler to distribute the servers load). I not very friendly with subdomains and big changes like this always can produce some problem (although the SEO migration would be ok, problems could appear, like ranking drops), But, the solution (the reasons are technical stuff), requires the mix of directories and subdomains in each product, leaving the structured in this way: Main country home (www.mysite.com.tld) o Product_1 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product1/) § Product_1 articles product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_art1 product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_art2 product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_artx o Product_2 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product2/) § Product_2 articles product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_art1 product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_art2 product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_artx So, the product home will be in a directory buy the pages of the articles of this product will be in a subdomain. What do you think about this solution? Beyond that the SEO migration would be fine, 301s, etc, can bring us difficulties in the rankings or the change can be done without any consideration? Thanks very much! Agustin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTeamDespegar0 -
Blog URL Canonical
Hi Guy's, I would like to know your thoughts on the following set-up for blog canonical. Option 1 domain.com/blog = <link rel="canonical" href="domin.com/blog"> domain.com/blog-category/general = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com/blog"> domain.com/blog-article/how-to-set-canonical = no canonical option 2 domain.com/blog = <link rel="canonical" href="domin.com blog"="">(as option 1)</link rel="canonical" href="domin.com> domain.com/blog-category/general = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com blog-category="" general"="">(this time has the canonical of the category)</link rel="canonical" href="domain.com> domain.com/blog-article/how-to-set-canonical = <link rel="canonical" href="domain.com blog-article="" how-to-set-canonical"="">(this time has the canonical of the article full URL)</link rel="canonical" href="domain.com> Just not sure which is the best option, or even if it is any of the above! Thanks Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan1e10 -
Changing my url name? Should I do it?
Hi, I am targeting a brand called Creative Recreation, who are a trainers brand. We currently rank ok-ish for certain terms for Creative Recreation Trainers, Footwear and Creative Recreation [INSERT STYLE NAME HERE]. Our main search term I think we would like to improve on is "creative recreation trainers" as we are 6th for this. Our domain name points to the brands page as designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/creative-recreation/ Now what I want to know is, would it be worthwhile or would it affect my current rank/index if I changed the end of that url to read /creative-recreation-trainers/ thus getting the keyword phrase in the url? Creative-Recreation is a hard one to crack as you have a lot of competition from the brands site etc.. Any ideas on this? Cheers Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
Url with hypen or.co?
Given a choice, for your #1 keyword, would you pick a .com with one or two hypens? (chicago-real-estate.com) or a .co with the full name as the url (chicagorealestate.co)? Is there an accepted best practice regarding hypenated urls and/or decent results regarding the effectiveness of the.co? Thank you in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joechicago0