Rel=canonical
-
My website is built around a template, the hosting site say I can only add code into the body of the webpage not the header, will this be ok for rel=canonical
If it is my next question is redundant but as there is only one place to put it which urls do I need to place in the code
http://domain.com, www.domain.com or http://www.domain.com
the /default.asp option for my website does not seem to exist, so I guess is not relevant
thanks
-
http://www.domain.com is the same as www.domain.com. http is the protocol in which web pages are formatted and sent and would be part of any "complete" URL.
So to answer your question, if there are no redirects in place you can choose either the non www or www version for your canonical tags. However if you are looking to consolidate to a particular version I would look at updating your htaccess file to create a redirect rule from one version to the other.
#Force non-www to www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]or
#Force www to non-www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301] -
Ok that means I can not use it on my main website but I have another hosted elsewhere where I can. So If I add the code in the head section of my web editor which links do I need to include
http://www.domain.com http://domain.com or www.domain.com and what is the correct syntax
I am assuming that my web editor changes 1 of those, but the change shows up on all three, so which is the authoritative page and which pages need to be referenced in the tag
I read the google article but I think I am more confused than ever
Thank you
-
rel=canonical needs to either go within the tags or the HTTP header.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html
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
-
Canonical for multi store
Hello all, I need to make sure I am doing this correctly; I have one website and with two stores (content is mostly identical) with the following canonical tags; UK/EU Store: thespacecollective.com USA/ROW Store: thespacecollective.com/us/ Am I right in thinking that this is incorrect and that only one site should be referencing with the canonical tag? ie; UK/EU Store: thespacecollective.com USA/ROW Store: thespacecollective.com/us/ (please note the removed /us/ from the end of the URL)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Why is rel="canonical" pointing at a URL with parameters bad?
Context Our website has a large number of crawl issues stemming from duplicate page content (source: Moz). According to an SEO firm which recently audited our website, some amount of these crawl issues are due to URL parameter usage. They have recommended that we "make sure every page has a Rel Canonical tag that points to the non-parameter version of that URL…parameters should never appear in Canonical tags." Here's an example URL where we have parameters in our canonical tag... http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/ rel="canonical" href="http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/?pageSize=0&pageSizeBottom=0" /> Our website runs on IBM WebSphere v 7. Questions Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL? What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters? Any advice for correcting this? Thanks for any help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Solid_Gold1 -
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!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DR700950 -
Duplicate Content / Canonical Conundrum on E-Commerce Website
Hi all, I’m looking for some expert advice on use of canonicals to resolve duplicate content for an e-Commerce site. I’ve used a generic example to explain the problem (I do not really run a candy shop). SCENARIO I run a candy shop website that sells candy dispensers and the candy that goes in them. I sell about 5,000 different models of candy dispensers and 10,000 different types of candy. Much of the candy fits in more than one candy dispenser, and some candy dispensers fit exactly the same types of candy as others. To make things easy for customers who need to fill up their candy dispensers, I provide a “candy finder” tool on my website which takes them through three steps: 1. Pick your candy dispenser brand (e.g. Haribo) 2. Pick your candy dispenser type (e.g. soft candy or hard candy) 3. Pick your candy dispenser model (e.g. S4000-A) RESULT: The customer is then presented with a list of candy products that they can buy. on a URL like this: Candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-A All of these steps are presented as HTML pages with followable/indexable links. PROBLEM: There is a duplicate content issue with the results pages. This is because a lot of the candy dispensers fit exactly the same candy (e.g. S4000-A, S4000-B and S4000-C). This means that the content on these pages are the basically same because the same candy products are listed. I’ll call these the “duplicate dispensers” E.g. Candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-A Candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-B Candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-C The page titles/headings change based on the dispenser model, but that’s not enough for the pages to be deemed unique by Moz. I want to drive organic traffic searches for the dispenser model candy keywords, but with duplicate content like this I’m guessing this is holding me back from any of these dispenser pages ranking. SOLUTIONS 1. Write unique content for each of the duplicate dispenser pages: Manufacturers add or discontinue about 500 dispenser models each quarter and I don’t have the resources to keep on top of this content. I would also question the real value of this content to a user when it’s pretty obvious what the products on the page are. 2. Pick one duplicate dispenser to act as a rel=canonical and point all its duplicates at it. This doesn’t work as dispensers get discontinued so I run the risk of randomly losing my canonicals or them changing as models become unavailable. 3. Create a single page with all of the duplicate dispensers on, and canonical all of the individual duplicate pages to that page. e.g. Canonical: candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-Series Duplicates (which all point to canonical): candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-Series?model=A candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-Series?model=B candy-shop.com/haribo/soft-candy/S4000-Series?model=C PROPOSED SOLUTION Option 3. Anyone agree/disagree or have any other thoughts on how to solve this problem? Thanks for reading.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webmethod0 -
Ecommerce Link Juice and Canonical URLs
Hello all. I am optimising an E-Commerce site and I have a questions about Products in several categories & Canonical URL's. Using Magento Platform. site.com/category1/product1/ ( link from category is site.com/product1/ )
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear
site.com/category2/product1/ ( link from category is site.com/product1/ )
site.com/category2/subcategory1/product1 ( link from category is the same , as is the canonical URL )
site.com/product1/ ( this is where other categories link to ) Canonical links for all the above is site.com/category2/subcategory1/product1 which takes care of duplicate content correctly. I just wonder if we would get more link juice if ALL the links from all categories went to site.com/category2/subcategory1/product1 ( instead of some going to site.com/product1/ ) Thanks in advance 🙂0 -
Include Cross Domain Canonical URL's in Sitemap - Yes or No?
I have several sites that have cross domain canonical tags setup on similar pages. I am unsure if these pages that are canonicalized to a different domain should be included in the sitemap. My first thought is no, because I should only include pages in the sitemap that I want indexed. On the other hand, if I include ALL pages on my site in the sitemap, once Google gets to a page that has a cross domain canonical tag, I'm assuming it will just note that and determine if the canonicalized page is the better version. I have yet to see any errors in GWT about this. I have seen errors where I included a 301 redirect in my sitemap file. I suspect its ok, but to me, it seems that Google would rather not find these URL's in a sitemap, have to crawl them time and time again to determine if they are the best page, even though I'm indicating that this page has a similar page that I'd rather have indexed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WEB-IRS0 -
How to fix a canonical problem with no htaccess?
Basically I need to find a way to fix my canonical problem. The www and no-www version of my site each show up. This creates duplicate content. I have no htaccess with yahoo. How else can I fix this problem? Does anyone have a sample code I could use?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Use rel=canonical to save otherwise squandered link juice?
Oftentimes my site has content which I'm not really interested in having included in search engine results. Examples might be a "view cart" or "checkout" page, or old products in the catalog that are no longer available in our system. In the past, I'd blocked those pages from being indexed by using robots.txt or nofollowed links. However, it seems like there is potential link juice that's being lost by removing these from search engine indexes. What if, instead of keeping these pages out of the index completely, I use to reference the home page (http://www.mydomain.com) of the business? That way, even if the pages I don't care about accumulate a few links around the Internet, I'll be capturing the link juice behind the scenes without impacting the customer experience as they browse our site. Is there any downside of doing this, or am I missing any potential reasons why this wouldn't work as expected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cadenzajon1