Canonical Tag Pointing To The Same URL
-
Does it matter if a canonical tag points to the URL in which the tag is on?
Example Page: http://www.domain.com
Canonical tag: rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" />
I only ask because a client of mine has a CMS that automatically does that to every page on the site and there's no way to remove it. Will this have a negative impact or does it not matter at all? Any insights would be great because I can't find a clear answer anywhere online.
Thanks!
-
This is actually a best practice IMO. If that page for whatever reason is duplicated somewhere else (could happen a year down the line) then you automatically eliminate the issue of dupe content and are already providing a directive to Google on which page is the original and which page to count.
-
Matt Cutts posted a video regarding this question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8eQgx-njk4. The answer is that it's ok to do.
-
In most situations, you will want the canonical tag pointing to the page that it exists on. The canonical tag tells search engines which page to index, if there are multiple URLs for the same content.
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
-
Google selecting incorrect URL as canonical: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical'
Hi there, A number of our URLs are being de-indexed by Google. When looking into this using Google Search Console the same message is appearing on multiple pages across our sites: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical' 'IndexingIndexing allowed? YesUser-declared canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/ie/products/real-estate-financial-software/Google-selected canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/real-estate-financial-software/'Has anyone else experienced this problem?How can I get Google to select the correct, user-declared canoncial? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | nfrank0 -
URL Parameters
On our webshop we've added some URL-parameters. We've set URL's like min_price, filter_cat, filter_color etc. on "don't Crawl" in our Google Search console. We see that some parameters have 100.000+ URL's and some have 10.000+ Is it better to add these parameters in the robots.txt file? And if that's better, how can we write it down so the URL's will not be crawled. Our robotos.txt files shows now: # Added by SEO Ultimate's Link Mask Generator module User-agent: * Disallow: /go/ # End Link Mask Generator output User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-admin/
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO1 -
Changing URLs for SEO
Hi, Currently we have a page, /business, but we have shifted our strategy to optimize for this page for the keyword "enterprise" instead of "business". The page authority of this page is 18 and our domain authority is 35. I've already updated content and title tags to more of an enterprise focus. Would it be wise to move the page to /enterprise and create a 301 redirect from /business to /enterprise? Or is this too risky from an SEO standpoint? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | mikekeeper0 -
Should I change the URL now?
Hi all, I have a client website that got hit in the latest algorithm update. It since appears that it had over 100 suspect links to it. I performed the Disavow procedure a few weeks ago via my Google Webmaster account, but have not received a message yet to say its been actioned. The majority of these suspect links go to one page. I am considering changing the base category (in Wordpress) to a different keyphrase and then submitting a new sitemap for indexing. This way there will be no actual link from a suspect website to a page on my website. Do you see what I mean? Will this help do you think? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | BrandC0 -
Wordpress: Tags generate duplicate Content - just delete the tags!?
Asking people, they say tags are bad and spamy and as I can see they generate all my duplicate page content issues. So the big question is, why Google very often prefers to show in SERPS these Tag-URLS... so it can't be too bad! :)))? Then after some research I found the "Term Optimizer" on Yoast.com ... that should help exactly with this problem but it seems not to be available anymore? So may be there another plugin that can help... or just delete all tags from my blog? and install permanent redirects?
Technical SEO | | inlinear
Is this the solution?0 -
Technical question about site structure using a CMS, redirects, and canonical tag
I have a couple of sites using a particular CMS that creates all of the pages under a content folder, including the home page. So the url is www.example.com/content/default.asp. There is a default.asp in the root directory that redirects to the default page in the content folder using a response.redirect statement and it’s considered a 302 redirect. So all incoming urls, i.e. www.example.com and example.com and www.example.com/ will go to the default.asp which then redirects to www.example.com/ content/default.asp. How does this affect SEO? Should the redirect be a 301? And whether it’s a 301 or a 302, can we have a rel=canonical tag on the page that that is rel=www.example.com? Or does that create some sort of loop? I’ve inherited several sites that use this CMS and need to figure out the best way to handle it.
Technical SEO | | CHutchins1 -
URL query strings and canonical tag
Hi, I have recently been getting my comparison website redesigned and developed onto wordpress and the site is now 90% complete. Part of the redesign has meant that there are now dynamic urls in the format: http://www.mywebsite.com/10-pounds-productss/?display=cost&value=10 I have other pages similar to this but with different content for the different price ranges and these are linked to from the menus: http://www.mywebsite.com/20-pounds-products/?display=cost&value=20 Now my questions are: 1. I am using Joost's All-in-one SEO plugin and this adds a canonical tag to the page that is pointing to http://www.mywebsite.com/10-pounds-products/ which is the permalink. Is this OK as it is or should i change this to http://www.mywebsite.com/10-pounds-products/?display=cost&value=10 2. Which URL will get indexed, what gets shown as the display URL in the SERPs and what page will users land on? I'm a bit confused so apologies if these seem like silly questions. Thanks
Technical SEO | | bizarro10000 -
How similar do pages need to be in order to utilize the canonical tag
Here is my specific situation. My company released new versions of a few documents in the fall. I was hoping that over time the old version would decline and the new version would rise but after 6 months the old version continues to rank #1 and the new version #3. The old version needs to stay on our site but users should really be getting to the most recent version. I think utilizing the canonical tag would solve the issue but i am concerned because the content on the actual pages is not duplicate but it is updated. Below are the two URLs to see the differences in the content. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/06tr008.cfm http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/10tr033.cfm Is this an appropriate situation to use the canonical tag? If not, is there a better solution.
Technical SEO | | SEI0