Using Canonicals on category or link pages
-
Hey,
If a site has category or tag pages showing in search results for a particular keyword - sometimes higher than the page you would like to rank - could using canonical redirects on categories and tags be a solution?
Thanks
-
Agreed. Out of curiosity, Eric, what's your opinion of then placing "noindex, follow" on the tag-or-category pages? I've seen cases in which the pages themselves are close enough to look like duplicate content.
-
Sites that allow both category and tags pages to get indexed will definitely run into duplicate content issues. We recommend choosing one--either tags or categories. We prefer to use a select number of categories, and make sure that each category has at least two or most posts associated with each category.
Rather than use the canonical tag, it's much more effective if you just remove all of the tags on the site (if you're only using categories). That will completely remove all the duplicate content on the site.
-
Hi,
This is a problem related to site's architecture i.e you need to expose only those pages to bots that you want to and while doing this, make sure you're not ending up with keyword cannibalization wherein you have more than one pages targeting a single keyword like in this situation.
So, its always better to take this call in the start whether you want to expose tag pages to bots or not? They might be serving exactly same content as your category pages for some keywords. As a result, you might end up with duplicate content and keyword cannibalization situations.
Short answer to your question, yes canonical should be fine here if the content is almost the same and targeting the same keyword. I would recommend you to not do this for individual pages, rather find a pattern and do it for all to avoid the same problem again.
Hope this helps!
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 Analytics - Tracking multiple thankyou pages?
Hi Guys, I want to track email opt-ins for multiple thank you pages. The setup is as follows: http://image.prntscr.com/image/57632e05a15f42fda0b8ffec2d176460.png I have not yet built the thank you pages, so i was wondering what the URL should be to make it easy to track them in GA? I'm thinking: domain.com/thankyou-page/page1 Then using regular expression in GA to track /thankyou-page/ Would this be a good way to go about it? Cheers. f6c7r0
Reporting & Analytics | | spyaccounts110 -
The best way to track internal links in Google Analytics
Hi there, we are a retail business and we have invested in quality editorial content which sits in our Blog at ourwebsite.co.uk/blog/ The Blog links to the main site (an online store) and I want to track the 'value' of the blog by how many clicks the blog content generates back to the main store. At the moment we're using this code on the end of every link in the Blog: ?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=Widget&utm_campaign=FromBlog Does this affect SEO and is there a better way of doing it? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Bee1590 -
How to filter out traffic from subdomain using regex?
Hi There, We have a test server that lives on a subdomain which we'd like to filter out in Google Analytics. We're using the hostname filter but are having trouble understanding the regex needed, we're using this as the filter pattern: .domain.com. Will that work? The profile is new so we can't test the pattern. Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. Cheers Ben
Reporting & Analytics | | cmscss0 -
How does Google measure page position in Webmasters?
Does anyone know exactly how Google measures page position in Webmaster Tools? For example: In Google Webmaster Tools, we had a product which on the 22/12/15 was at position 7, and then dropped to position 112 on the 30/12/15. It then rose back up to position 7 on the 6/01/16 and then down to position 25 on the 16/01/16. What does this mean and why?
Reporting & Analytics | | CostumeD0 -
Using Site Maps Correctly
Hello I'm looking to submit a sitemap for a post driven site with over 5000 pages. The site hasn't got a sitemap but it is indexed by google - will submitting a sitemap make a difference at this stage? Also, most free sitemap tools only go up to 5000 pages, and I'm thinking I would try a sitemap using a free version of the tool before I buy one - If my site is 5500 pages but I only submit a sitemap for 5000 (I have no control of which pages get included in the sitemap) would this have a negative effect for the pages that didn't get included? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | wearehappymedia0 -
How do I find links on my site
I'm looking to find a certain type of link on my site. A link that we're directing out of the site. We have a lot of subdomains though and I was wondering if there was a way to find all the links on each subdomain without screaming frog them all?
Reporting & Analytics | | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
Do I need to turn off custom results or empty my cache before using the SEOMOZ Pro Rank checker?
I'm getting unusual swings in SERPS ranks from one day to another (I had several keywords ranked in top ten go to the the third or fourth page in a week). I knwo that there's always variation because of localized and custom search, but this seems to be something more.
Reporting & Analytics | | bbelgard0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
I'm getting the warning of "Too many on-page links". I have a number of affiliate marketing sites, all Wordpress, all with sidebars. In the header navigation bar is a link that offers "reviews" and links to each product/brand. This is not a drop down link but leads to a page with product links. Also, in the sidebar I have links that also lead to the products/brands. Redundant yes, but in the beginning this seemed to be a good practice in site design. It would be easy to simply remove the widget that contains the link process in the sidebar. The problem may simply be that the sidebar is the same for every page in the site(s). Is this hurting total SEO as my sites are all over 95-percent indexed. One site in particular does very well in traffic and sales so is removing these links potentially going to improve my SEO and ultimately by success? Thanks, Don
Reporting & Analytics | | JavaManOne0