If you use canonicals do the meta descriptions need to be different?
-
For example, we have 3 different subsites with the same pages. We will put canonicals so they reference the main pages. Do the meta descriptions have to be different for each of the three pages? How does Google handle meta data when using canonicals?
-
I don't really know any best practices in this topic. Me, in your case, I'd leave them just as they are now. Applying the canonicals, of course.
-
Thanks for your response.
Would you recommend as a best practice to include/repeat the same metadata on all the pages referencing the other (canonical) page or should we leave the metadata fields on the pages with canonicals blank?
-
Hi there,
Long story short: Nop it doesn't care that both pages with canonicals have the same meta data. It only matters the selected by the canonical.
Best luck.
GR. -
Hi there.
Basically, canonical link tells search engines to move all the ranking weight to a page, linked by canonical link. Therefore if google thinks that page A should be ranked for a given keyphrase, but this page A has a canonical link to another page B, page B will be considered as a ranking nominee and page A will be discarded. Which means that all meta data and other things WILL be taken from page B.
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
-
Which Version Url to Use for Canonical Tags and in General for Homepage.
I want to put canonical tags on the homepage of a site. cant figure out the version of URL of the homepage should be with a / at the end or without the / ( www.example.com of www.example.com/ ) if I put into the google the URL with / I get the URL without the / in my browser, and it isn't showing as a redirect in my moz extension or other tools. But when I copy the URL from browser and paste elsewhere it pastes with a / I have two questions 1 - in general how does it work with URLs of homepages - I see this happening with lots of sites? 2 - which URL should I set as the canonical version of my homepage? Thanks so much
Technical SEO | | Ruchy0 -
Special Characters in Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
Do special characters, such as the "&" symbol or a "," in title tags and meta descriptions negatively affect your ranking in search engines? Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | ZAG1 -
How different should content be so that it is not considered duplicate?
I am making a 2nd website for the same company. The name of the company, our services, keywords and contact info will show up several times within the text of both websites. The overall text and paragraphs will be different but some info may be repeated on both sites. Should I continue this? What precautions should I take?
Technical SEO | | savva0 -
What if meta description tag comes before meta title tag? Do the search engines disregard or penalize if the order is not title then description in the HTML?
Do the search engines disregard or penalize if the order is not title then description in the HTML? A client's webmaster is a newbie to SEO and did just this. Suggestions?
Technical SEO | | alankoen1230 -
Multiple (different) domains and canonicalisation
Hello, We've had experience with canonical tags for various domains before, such as tidying up product categories etc... However, can anyone point me to any guidelines about different domains using canonicalisation. For example: If I had the following sites, all with identical content - exampledomain.com completelydifferentdomain.net anothertotallydifferentdomain.com With canonical tags pointing to the first one (exampledomain.com), could this be harmful? Is it better to 301 redirect the other sites? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Sarbs0 -
Warnings for blocked by blocked by meta-robots/meta robots Nofollow...how to resolve?
Hello, I see hundreds of notices for blocked by meta-robots/meta robots nofollow and it appears it is linked to the comments on my site which I assume I would not want to be crawled. Is this the case and these notices are actually a positive thing? Please advise how to clear them up if these notices can be potentially harmful for my SEO. Thanks, Talia
Technical SEO | | M80Marketing0 -
If you only want your home page to rank, can you use rel="canonical" on all your other pages?
If you have a lot of pages with 1 or 2 inbound links, what would be the effect of using rel="canonical" to point all those pages to the home page? Would it boost the rankings of the home page? As I understand it, your long-tail keyword traffic would start landing on the home page instead of finding what they were looking for. That would be bad, but might be worth it.
Technical SEO | | watchcases0 -
Robots.txt and robots meta
I have an odd situation. I have a CMS that has a global robots.txt which has the generic User-Agent: *
Technical SEO | | Highland
Allow: / I also have one CMS site that needs to not be indexed ever. I've read in various pages (like http://www.jesterwebster.com/robots-txt-vs-meta-tag-which-has-precedence/22 ) that robots.txt always wins over meta, but I have also read that robots.txt indicates spiderability whereas meta can control indexation. I just want the site to not be indexed. Can I leave the robots.txt as is and still put NOINDEX in the robots meta?0