Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Meta name Author
Hello! I have a problem. I'm using Rank Math for WordPress. But I can’t configure a basic thing such as <meta name="author" content="" />. I had to insert this code manually using the hook. Does anyone know a normal way to do this markup? Example page: https://b-shoes.com/foot-shaped-shoes/ Thank you!
Technical SEO | | WayneM.0 -
Canonical or hreflang?
I have four English sites for four different countries, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I want to share some content between the sites. On the pages that share the content, which is essentially exactly the same on all 4 sites, do I use the hreflang tags like: or do I add a canonical tag to the other three pointing to the "origin", which would be the UK site? I believe it is best practice to use one or the other, but I'm not sure which make sense in this situation.
Technical SEO | | andrew-mso0 -
Using a non-visible H1
I have a developer that wants to use style="text-indent:-9999px" to make the H1 non-visible to the user. Being the conservative person I am, I've never tried this before and worry that Search Engines may think this is a form of cloaking. Am I worrying about nothing? And apologies if it's already been covered here. I couldn't find it. Thanks in advance!!!!
Technical SEO | | elytical0 -
Effective use of hReview
Hi fellow Mozzers! I am just in the process of adding various reviews to our site (a design agency), but I wanted to use the ratings in different ways depending on the page. So for the home page and the services (branding, POS, direct mail etc) I wanted to aggregate relevant reviews (giving us an average of all reviews for the home page, an average of ratings from all brand projects and so on). Then, I wanted to put specific reviews on our portfolio pages, so the review relates specifically to that project. This is the easiest to do as the hReview generator is geared up for reviews that come from one source, but I can't find a way of aggregating the star ratings to make an average rating rich snippet. Anyone know where I can get the coding for this? Thanks in advance! Nick.
Technical SEO | | themegroup0 -
Use webmaster tools "change of address" when doing rel=canonical
We are doing a "soft migration" of a website. (Actually it is a merger of two websites). We are doing cross site rel=canonical tags instead of 301's for the first 60-90 days. These have been done on a page by page basis for an entire site. Google states that a "change of address" should be done in webmaster tools for a site migration with 301's. Should this also be done when we are doing this soft move?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0 -
Do I need to add canonical link tags to pages that I promote & track w/ UTM tags?
New to SEOmoz, loving it so far. I promote content on my site a lot and am diligent about using UTM tags to track conversions & attribute data properly. I was reading earlier about the use of link rel=canonical in the case of duplicate page content and can't find a conclusive answer whether or not I need to add the canonical tag to these pages. Do I need the canonical tag in this case? If so, can the canonical tag live in the HEAD section of the original / base page itself as well as any other URLs that call that content (that have UTM tags, etc)? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | askotzko1 -
Is using a Href in Div OK?
Hi, I was just wondering what your thoughts are on using a Href in a Div, which contains anchor text. We currently use the Href on the div, as opposed to just the anchor text as I want the whole div to be clickable as opposed to just the anchor text. So currently I have: Keword 1
Technical SEO | | James77
Keyword 2 Is this perfectly fine to do it like this as opposed to using <a tags="" ???<br="">I suppose there are various alternatives - if you must use the</a><a tag="" like:<="" p=""></a> <a tag="" like:<="" p=""></a> Keword 1
Keyword 2 However I would assume a search engine is smart enought to know its the same thing??? Thanks0
