301 to canonical
-
I'm doing some work on a website, they have a very popular product search where you enter a specific part code (6 digits) and it takes you to the product. So for example
Search: 123456
Page redirected to domain.com/product/123456
With a canonical of domain.com/product/this-is-the-product-title
Would it be beneficial to redirect from /product/123456 to /product/this-is-the-product-title
Google seems to be indexing both versions. For some of these products a reasonable amount of links are built.
-
No prob, let me know how things turn out (professional curiosity)
Like yourself my main project is dated in areas and a workaround is more cost effective than a rebuild, always interesting to see how people get around issues.
GL!
-
The 123456 url is only used in once place (or on banners in various places) any time this is in a category it is using the canonical url, once stock is loaded it only takes an hour for this to pull through. So the mass of links to this is the canonical url (however it usually has some form of tracking attached to it)
It's a very large and dated website, so we've got to try and get workarounds until development get round to sorting this kind of thing.
The mass of urls are showing as the canonicals, we've just got a few (hundreds) that aren't playing ball.
Really appreciate your help.
-
Sorry just want to check i understand this,
The product is originally created as domain.com/123456.html and is utilised at this url for a period of time.
You get the canonical url of domain.com/product-title.html later the day the product goes live.
You then create the canonical url and insert the canonical tags at a later time?
If all these are correct then it could explain why your having issues.
Google will crawl and index 123456.html pretty quickly, if this is the base url the product is created at you will most likely find that the links off your category pages use this url and any initial links use this url, this is bad for what you are trying to achieve.
When you then change to the canonical you create a situation where you have 2 copies of the page. 1 with loads of links pointing to it, especially internally, and another with no links. But your trying to tell google that the one with no links is the main version. I would bet this is why it is indexing both.
Even if you change all of the links and add the correct canonical tag it can take time for google to change, even then it can choose to ignore it (it can be frustrating).
Ideally you want to create the canonical URL first or at the same time as the 123456.html url and instantly add all the canonical tags, this way that all default links that a created internally point to it, and the first time it gets crawled it is already pointing to the canonical url.
In your current timetable, I would say redirects would be more suitable than canonical for both the order you release them and the general use.
About your plan,
If your timings are correct, then sure, that doesn't sound like too much of a time commitment and i think the benefit would be worth it. What I would expect to see within the month is the de-indexing of all the 123456.html versions
**Just remember, check all your canonicals actually need a 301 before doing them on bulk. You may have places on your site that you have canonicals because both versions of a page are needed, don't redirect these in your haste
-
Thank you for your response ATP.
I've done numerous checks and we're following all of the best practices, the only thing I can think of is that this url is the first that's seen (we only release stock on a time due to the nature of the business, we then only get the canonical on that day) so any scheduled work uses the part code, which we then at a later date manually change to the canonical url.
We are always trying to get these links changed to the correct version, however as we have a large site (570k+ pages) crawling for these is always an issue.
We can quite comfortably get a list of the canonicals thanks to screaming frog and being able to export our product codes (which are these six digit numbers). So you think it would be a viable solution to bulk upload our whole product catalog and on the /product/123456 urls redirecting to the /product/product-title and we should see a benefit from this? (Would take about an hours work initially then just adding current urls being 5 minutes a day)
-
Hi Thomas,
Firstly, the canonical does the same job as the 301 (for all intensive purposes) without the physical redirect. So in theory only the canonical should be being indexed and all the link juice should be being passed.
The fact that both are indexed suggests that the canonical isn't behaving as intended
- I would check for common cannonical errors to begin with
- If this isn't the case, i would suggest that the 123456 version has too many links maybe internally and externally and that google is ignoring the canonical because it has too much authority.
An issue with using canonical like this is that people who use the search are not sent to the main canonical url. This gives people the opportunity to copy and link to the wrong version of the url, which isn't a practice you want.
A possible solution would be to find all backlinks and get them changed to the main canonical version internally and externally, this could be a lot of work.
The 301 redirect is better in my opinion because it achieves the following
- Customer always see a useful URL and the main canonical URL
- Because of this, links will only likely be built the the url you want
- Google will de-index the 123456 version because it becomes inaccessible
However, unless you can automate this procedure, it can take too much time to create all those 301's for every product.
Personally i use the following guidlines as i find it keeps things clean and tidy
301 any url that isn't domain.com/main-product-url.html
keep the canonical on domain.com/main-product-url.html so that any version created from filtering or unexpected cms pages dont create duplicate 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
-
Can lost pages be redirected with a 301 in order to do not lost keyword rankings?
Hi, I have got a website and some posts rank well, but I am not so interested in keep them for branding reasons. So I planned to do 301 redirects to home and remove those contents. Is it ok? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | patrizia_h0 -
Should I add canonical links to pages that are redirected?
Hello! I am a little confused concerning canonical links. I have several URLs that all access my page, but I redirect them all. A lot of places I am told to redirect them or use canonicals. Other places, I read that I should always use canonicals. What is the right way for me? If I should use canonicals as well as redirects, which links should I do this on? I redirect my pages like this: http to https:
On-Page Optimization | | hermanok
http://example.com -> https://example.com www to non-www:
https://www.example.com -> https://example.com Remove trailing slashes
https://example.com/ -> https://example.com Would-be 404-requests to index.php?p=$1
https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( show as https://example.com/home ) Example:
http://www.example.com/home/ -> http://www.example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home/ -> https://example.com/home -> https://example.com/index.php?p=home ( shows as https://example.com/home ) Thank you!0 -
Rel canonical tag on a single page site?
I have a wordpress theme site which essentially is all in 1 page. Do I need to use rel-canonical tag? It would just loop?
On-Page Optimization | | graftene0 -
Should old pages that have being 301 redirected but have no/mimimal traffic be deleted?
In other words, I have pages from years ago that are redirected but how can I tell if traffic still flows through them? And if there is no or minimal traffic should the 301 be deleted? Linck
On-Page Optimization | | LinckB0 -
Canonical Question For Different Languages
My client has a site that supports different languages in the following structure: www.domain.com - English version www.domain.com/IT - Italian version www.domain/DE - German version etc.... I have set the languages up within Webmaster Tools but do I need to set up the canonical tag for all internal pages as they are basically the same but just in a different language i.e. www.domain.com/index.php is the same as www.domain.com/DE/index.php but in a different language. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bigfootdigital0 -
Does 301 generate organic content ?
I manage this domain name www.jordanhundley.com . Right now it is 301 to www.jordanhundley.net where I hosted the content for almost 18 months. At this point you are only able to read the 301 script if you use CTRL U at the .com domain. Does Google read the content beyond the script? Is the 301 website getting juice from the targeted domain ? This is the script I´m using <html> <head> <title>Jordan Hundleytitle> head> <frameset rows="100%,*" border="0"> <frame src="[http://www.jordanhundley.net](view-source:http://www.jordanhundley.net/)" frameborder="0" /> frameset><noframes>noframes> html>
On-Page Optimization | | mPloria0 -
Implementing rel=canonical in a CMS
Hi Guys, We have an issue with duplicate content caused by dynamic URLs, so want to implement rel=canonical. However this isn't easy due to the way out CMS works. These were pulled from SEOMoz scan: http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
On-Page Optimization | | brightonseorob
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1&perpage=10&sales_group=NULL&filter_colour=&filter_size=&sortby=RELEV&inStock=NO&resfilter=
and are obviously the same page. As far as I can see I have two options. 1. To implement the canonical meta tag only on page 1. 2. To implement the canonical tag so that I add ?page=X so
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
would be
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1 Will this work? Thanks Rob0 -
301 redirect OK for a newer version of a page that is a different url?
I have about 500 products with multiple urls for the same product, but different versions. I sell wine and have a different page for each vintage. I've decided that is not the best way to go, and want to point the older vintage pages to the latest version page, and make that the only page for the product as time goes on. Do I have to put a link in the text from each older page to the newer, or can I use a 301 to redirect them to the new page? I don't want google to think I'm pulling something funny.
On-Page Optimization | | JeanYates0