Is the full URL necessary for successful Canonical Links?
-
Hi, my first question and hopefully an easy enough one to answer.
Currently in the head element of our pages we have canonical references such as:
(Yes, untidy URL...we are working on it!)
I am just trying to find out whether this snippet of the full URL is adequete for canonicalization or if the full domain is needed aswell.
My reason for asking is that the SEOmoz On-Page Optimization grading tool is 'failing' all our pages on the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value.
I have been unable to find a definitive answer on this, although admittedly most examples do use the full URL. (I am not the site developer so cannot simply change this myself, but rather have to advise him in a weekly meeting).
So in short, presumably using the full URL is best practise, but is it essential to its effectiveness when being read by the search engines? Or could there be another reason why the "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" value is not being green ticked?
Thank you very much, I appreciate any advice you can give.
-
Thanks I will get the full URLs implemented to avoid any future confusions.
I can't give an exact size of the site but I know it is much larger than it should be. It seems as though our CMS has been unnecessarily producing new URLs for the same pages over and over which we are aiming to fix very soon.
-
Thank you for your fast responses!
Sorry Damien, I am at odds as to how I missed this bit of information!
In light of this, do you have any clues as to why SEOmoz on page diagnostics does not like our canonical references?
-
Thank you for your fast responses!
Sorry Damien, I am at odds as to how I missed this bit of information!
In light of this, do you have any clues as to why SEOmoz on page diagnostics does not like our canonical references?
-
Interesting that Google mentions absolute and relative urls, but they don't specifically address root relative urls (what this is, since it begins with the "/") or show it in their examples.
-
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394
Part of relevance -
Can the link be relative or absolute?
The rel="canonical" attribute can be used with relative or absolute links, but we recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or difficulties. If your document specifies a base link, any relative links will be relative to that base link.
-
If you check half way down the page it answers exactly what you're after.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
In short, it's fine
DD
..if you can't be bothered finding it:
"Can I use a relative path to specify the canonical, such as ?
Yes, relative paths are recognized as expected with the tag. Also, if you include a <base> link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL."
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
-
Will links be counted?
We are considering a redesign of our website and one of the options we are considering is to come up with something along the lines of http://www.tesco.com/, with rotating top offers. The question I am wondering is whether or not the links (ie. the blue links on the left side of the main graphic) will be visible to the spiders, and if not, whether there is a way to code it so they are?
Technical SEO | | simonukss0 -
How can I see the SEO of a URL? I need to know the progress of a specific landing-page of my web. Not a keyword, an url please. Thanks.
I need to know the evolution on SEO of a specific landing-page (an URL) of my web. Not a keyword, a url. Thanks. (Necesito saber si es posible averiguar el progreso de una URL específica en el posicionamiento de Google. Es decir, lo que hace SEOmoz con las palabras clave pero al revés. Yo tengo una url concreta que quiero posicionar en las primeras posiciones de Google pero quiero ver cómo va progresando en función a los cambios que le voy aplicando. Muchas gracias)
Technical SEO | | online_admiral0 -
Too many on page links
Yes this question again. I know it get's asked a lot and I know of a few fixes, but this one I'm having a problem with. So we have a fan gallery on our site which is not only causing duplicate page titles, which I'm thinking we can fix with a canonical, but also too many on page links. The issue is this is on drupal which I have very little experience with and it seems to just be located within the fan galleries section of the site. After looking at a few things I know that no-follow wont be an option since from what I read it wont really work anyway so I was wondering if anyone else has an asnwer. I just read through a million articles trying to find a simular situation and can't seem to find anyone with the same thing. It might have something to do with the plugins the programmers used, but my inexperience with drupal is making this difficult. Thanks guys.
Technical SEO | | KateGMaker0 -
Canonical warnings
[1] My site development tool (XSP) has recently added the canonical reference as an auto-generated tag, so every page of my site now has it. Why is SEOmoz warning me that I have hundreds of pages of canonicals if it's supposed to be a GOOD thing? [2] Google is still seeing the pages without the canonical tag because that's how they were indexed. Will they eventually get purged from their index, or should I be proactive about that, and if so, how? Thanks for any input.
Technical SEO | | PatioLifeStyle0 -
Remove Links or 301
Howdy Guys, Our main site has been hit pretty hard by penguin and we are just wondering what steps we should now take. For the past 2 months we have been working through our back link profile removing spammy / un-natural links, we have documented everything in a spreadsheet... We recently submitted a reconsideration request to Google and they have now responded saying we still have bad links. I'm just wondering would be it easier just to 301 redirect our site to another TLD we have for our main site? Or Do we keep working through our links 1 by 1 and removing them? Has anyone had any success in 301ing? Thanks, Scott
Technical SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
What happens when a link goes to a dead url on my site?
I noticed in Open Site Explorer, I have several incoming links going to dead urls because i re-organized my site. For example, there might be an incoming link to: sample.php?ID=8 The problem is that I moved the file to /subdir1 so it would be nice if it could link to /subdir1/sample.php?ID=8 BUT, on top of that, I have also changed the url to seo-friendly urls. So, really, it should link to /Category_Descripton/ProductName/8 and then get re-written to /subdir1/sample.php?ID=8 So, what are the implications of having these incoming links to dead urls other than the bad user experience. What are the implications from an SEO standpoint? What's the best way to fix this? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | webtarget0 -
Can I redirect a URL that has a # in it? How?
Hi there - My web developer is saying that I can't do a URL redirect with a "#" in it. Currently, the URL is actually an anchored link within a page (which the URL indicates with a #). I want to change the content to a new URL, but our website links internally to the old URL, so we would need to do a URL redirect (assume 301). Can you tell me if this is possible and how? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | sfecommerce0 -
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!
Technical SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0