Duplicate content and canonicalization confusion
-
Hello,
http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR pages have same content and their canonical refers to the page itself. Yet, they rank in search engines. Is it because they have been targeted to different geographical locations? If so, still the content is same.
Please help me clear this confusion.
Regards
-
I agree with you. It's all very confusing and little details make a BIG difference. Thanks for sticking with this.
-
Thanks a ton Donna for looking into the issue and helping at this level. I highly appreciate it
Their canonical tags confused me. As you have mentioned, the tags should have been one, I don't know why they are using two different ones. Probably, they have set the different geographic targets in Google Webmaster Tools and with the minor content variation and canonical tags, they want to signal Google to treat both the pages differently. I mean it's a big name in the world of ERP. They can't mess up with the canonical tags.
What do you think?
-
Okay. Let's start over looking at it from a goal perspective. I compared the two pages. Here is the difference between the two in terms of page text, highlighted in yellow - http://63.249.66.211/comparison.html. The differences are in the URL, the phone numbers at the top, a word here and there in the middle, and the 2nd block of text and photo under "Explore Our Solutions".
The first page, which I'll call India, has a canoncial tag pointing to itself. (http://www.sap.com/india/pc/bp/erp.html"/>) .
The second page, which I'll call UK, has a canoncial tag, also pointing to itself. (http://www.sap.com/uk/pc/bp/erp.html"/>).
- If you want both pages to rank and have authority, then you use the canonical tag. You need to use the same canonical tag on both pages. Right now they're different. That will essentially tell Google to treat the two pages as one; to show one or the other in search results, but considate their combined SEO value into one for ranking purposes.
- If you only want one page to rank, then noindex the other.
Does that make more sense?
-
Thanks for the reply Donna but my question is bit different. Could you please take a look at the rel canonical tag of the urls I posted. The content on both the pages is 100% same. The only difference is that they are targeted at different geographic locations. The canonical tags point to the page itself and not any master page.
-
This might help Shailendra - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en. Skim down to (or search for) the part beginning with "This indicates the preferred URL", about half-way down the page.
Bottom line, Google attempts to respect canonical tags but it's no guarantee. Increase your chances by using "absolute paths rather than relative paths with the
rel="canonical"
link element". -
Thanks everyone for the response! But I am still confused. The two links that I have posted in my initial question have exactly the same content on both the pages (targeted at different geographic locations) and their canonical tags do not refer to any master page but to them itself, i.e. canonical tag on page A refers to A and canonical tag on page B refers to B. Please take a look at both the pages: http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR
Regards
-
Canonical pages still get indexed at Google's discretion.
A related question was asked in March 2013 that I think, explains what you're seeing. I've cut and pasted the relevant part below. Mememax is the author.
"Normally the only thing which will prevent a page from ranking is noindex tag. If you don't want to have it indexed just noindex it, if that page has been laready indexed, put the noindex tag and delete from index using GWT option.
Concerning the canonical tag thing, it will consolidate the seo value in one page but it won't prevent those page to appear in rankings, however you may have two cases:
-
the two or more pages are identical. In that case google may accept the canonicalization and show always the original page.
-
the two or more pages are slightly different, it's the case of paginated pages which are canonicalized using rel next/prev. In that sense the whole value will be consolidated in page 1 but then the page which will be shown in the rankings will be the one which responds to that query, for example if someone is looking for blue glass, google will return the page which shows blue glass listing if that's different from the first one."
-
-
Yes, if they were directly competing against each other, you'd expect one of them to drop out of the rankings. What are they both ranking for?
If they are both showing up in the same search, my guess would be that they are very new and Google hasn't noticed the duplication.
But if you see the ranking in different searches (like Google UK and Google India), then you are probably right, Google does not see them as duplicate since they are being shown to different audiences.
-
Hi,
I am sharing two Matt cutts video on this to clear your confusion.I hope it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw
Thanks
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
-
Javascript tabbed navigation and duplicate content
I'm working on a site that has four primary navigation links and under each is a tabbed navigation system for second tier items. The primary link page loads content for all tabs which are javascript controlled. Users will click the primary navigation item "Our Difference" (http://www.holidaytreefarm.com/content.cfm/Our-Difference) and have several options with each tabs content in separate sections. Each second tier tab is also available via sitemap/direct link (ie http://www.holidaytreefarm.com/content.cfm/Our-Difference/Tree-Logistics) without the js navigation so the content on this page is specific to the tab, not all tabs. In this scenario, will there be duplicate content issues? And, what is the best way to remedy this? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | Total-Design-Shop0 -
Https Duplicate Content
My previous host was using shared SSL, and my site was also working with https which I didn’t notice previously. Now I am moved to a new server, where I don’t have any SSL and my websites are not working with https version. Problem is that I have found Google have indexed one of my blog http://www.codefear.com with https version too. My blog traffic is continuously dropping I think due to these duplicate content. Now there are two results one with http version and another with https version. I searched over the internet and found 3 possible solutions. 1 No-Index https version
Technical SEO | | RaviAhuja
2 Use rel=canonical
3 Redirect https versions with 301 redirection Now I don’t know which solution is best for me as now https version is not working. One more thing I don’t know how to implement any of the solution. My blog is running on WordPress. Please help me to overcome from this problem, and after solving this duplicate issue, do I need Reconsideration request to Google. Thank you0 -
Content Duplication and Canonical Tag settings
Hi all, I have a question regarding content duplication.My site has posted one fresh content in the article section and set canonical in the same page for avoiding content duplication._But another webmaster has taken my post and posted the same in his site with canonical as his site url. They have not given to original source as well._May I know how Google will consider these two pages. Which site will be affected with content duplication by Google and how can I solve this issue?If two sites put canonical tags in there own pages for the same content how the search engine will find the original site which posted fresh content. How can we avoid content duplication in this case?
Technical SEO | | zco_seo0 -
Duplicate Content?
My site has been archiving our newsletters since 2001. It's been helpful because our site visitors can search a database for ideas from those newsletters. (There are hundreds of pages with similar titles: archive1-Jan2000, archive2-feb2000, archive3-mar2000, etc.) But, I see they are being marked as "similar content." Even though the actual page content is not the same. Could this adversely affect SEO? And if so, how can I correct it? Would a separate folder of archived pages with a "nofollow robot" solve this issue? And would my site visitors still be able to search within the site with a nofollow robot?
Technical SEO | | sakeith0 -
Filter Tag Duplicate Content E-Commerce Issue
Hello, I just launched a new site for a client but am seeing some duplicate content issues in the campaign crawl. It has to do with the drill-down, filter "tags" that helps users find the product they are looking for. You can see them in the sidebar here: http://www.ssmd.com/shop/ In my crawl report this is what is showing up as duplicate content (attached image). How do I keep these widgets from generating duplicate content on the site? Also, not sure if it's important or not, but I am using Wordpress, WooCommerce and Yoast's SEO Tool. Any suggestions are appreciated! Screen%20Shot%202012-10-23%20at%202.56.00%20PM.png
Technical SEO | | kylehungate0 -
Is Noindex Enough To Solve My Duplicate Content Issue?
Hello SEO Gurus! I have a client who runs 7 web properties. 6 of them are satellite websites, and 7th is his company's main website. For a long while, my company has, among other things, blogged on a hosted blog at www.hismainwebsite.com/blog, and when we were optimizing for one of the other satellite websites, we would simply link to it in the article. Now, however, the client has gone ahead and set up separate blogs on every one of the satellite websites as well, and he has a nifty plug-in set up on the main website's blog that pipes in articles that we write to their corresponding satellite blog as well. My concern is duplicate content. In a sense, this is like autoblogging -- the only thing that doesn't make it heinous is that the client is autoblogging himself. He thinks that it will be a great feature for giving users to his satellite websites some great fresh content to read -- which I agree, as I think the combination of publishing and e-commerce is a thing of the future -- but I really want to avoid the duplicate content issue and a possible SEO/SERP hit. I am thinking that a noindexing of each of the satellite websites' blog pages might suffice. But I'd like to hear from all of you if you think that even this may not be a foolproof solution. Thanks in advance! Kind Regards, Mike
Technical SEO | | RCNOnlineMarketing0 -
Duplicate Content on Navigation Structures
Hello SEOMoz Team, My organization is making a push to have a seamless navigation across all of its domains. Each of the domains publishes distinctly different content about various subjects. We want each of the domains to have its own separate identity as viewed by Google. It has been suggested internally that we keep the exact same navigation structure (40-50 links in the header) across the header of each of our 15 domains to ensure "unity" among all of the sites. Will this create a problem with duplicate content in the form of the menu structure, and will this cause Google to not consider the domains as being separate from each other? Thanks, Richard Robbins
Technical SEO | | LDS-SEO0 -
Duplicate Content Issues - Should I build a new site?
I'm currently working on a site which is built using Zen Cart. The client also has another version which has the same products on it. The product descriptions and the vast majority of the text has been re-written. I've used the duplicate content tool and these are the results: HTML fingerprint: 0000a7ee1f07a131 0000a7ec1f07a931 92.31% Total HTML similarity: 76.33% Standard text similarity: 66.72% Smart text similarity: 45.81% Total text similarity 56.27% I considered using a different eCommerce system like Magento or Volusion. So I had a look at a few templates, chose one and then used the tool again and got the following: HTML fingerprint: 0000a7e41b012111 0000a7ec1f07a931 72.00% Total HTML similarity: 64.65% Standard text similarity: 11.69% Smart text similarity: 17.90% Total text similarity 14.80% Do you think its worth doing this? thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | TheYeti0