Do pages with canonicals need meta data?
-
Page A has a canonical to Page B. Should Page A have meta data values such as description, keywords, dublin core values, etc.? If yes, should the meta data values be different on Page A and Page B?
-
Hey Shirley -
Thanks for the question! Short answer is no - the information does not have to be different. What should happen with a canonical is that the search engines will see the canonical and apply the ranking for Page A to Page B.
However, the search engines do tell us that a canonical is a suggestion and that they do not always respect it if they think it was either a) done in error or b) is being done to manipulate. So, assuming Page B really is a duplicate of or a better version of Page A, yet you want to keep Page A around for some reason (PPC landing page or other), then the meta info will likely be similar anyways.
Finally, if you are canonicalling Page A to Page B, make sure that Page A is not in your XML sitemaps!
Good luck!
John
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
-
Linking from high ranking sub domain pages to less ranking main domain pages to benefit latter
Hi all, We have our product guide pages on sub domain which are years old, so have some backlinks and high ranking for the beand related queries. Now we created new guide pages on our main website and we want these new pages to rank top beating the old pages from sub domain. Again we can't deindex or rel canonical to solve the issue as there are some part of users still using the old pages. We are planning to give a link from every old page of sub domain to same new page on main domain. Will this linking increases the authority of new pages technically and helps in ranking better? Like we give a link to "Moz guide 1" page to "Moz guide 2" page to rank latter better. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What date tags are required/best to use for articles or other landing pages?
Does anyone have suggestions on which date tag(s) are most important to use and how to use them on the frontend? (i.e. dateModified, dateCreated, and datePublished). The Structured Data Testing Tool is coming up with errors for my article pages, but I'm a bit confused which ones should be in the code vs. showing on the frontend.
Algorithm Updates | | ElsaT0 -
Google AMP (accelerated mobile pages), can it be used for non-Google news and Ecommerce Websites?
Mozzers, I've been doing a lot of research on Google's new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) https://moz.com/blog/accelerated-mobile-pages-whiteboard-friday. From what I'm seeing, these AMP version websites are only for Google News-worthy websites such as New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and the BuzzFeeds of the world. But what about Ecommerce websites like Ebay or Amazon? Will AMP versions of "scotch tape" via OfficeDepot work in the SERP's on non-Google News cards?
Algorithm Updates | | Shawn1240 -
Meta Keyword Tags
What is the word on Meta Keyword Tags? Are they good to have, or bad? Our biggest competitor seems to have them.
Algorithm Updates | | Essential-Pest0 -
Organic listing & map listing on 1st page of Google
Hi, Back then, a company could get multiple listings in SERP, one in Google Maps area and a homepage or internal pages from organic search results. But lately, I've noticed that Google are now putting together the maps & organic listings. This observation has been confirmed by a couple of SEO people and I thought it made sense, but one day I stumble with this KWP "bmw dealership phoenix" and saw that www.bmwnorthscottsdale.com has separate listing for google places and organic results. Any idea how this company did this? Please see the attached image
Algorithm Updates | | ao5000000 -
Ecommerce good/bad? Showing product description on sub/category page?
Hi Mozers, I have a ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website. If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right? OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page. I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt. Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet. Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts: http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/ Chris 27eVz
Algorithm Updates | | longdenc_gmail.com0 -
Is using WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) ok for On-Page SEO?
Hi Mozzers, I'm investigating multilingual site setup and translating content for a small website for 15-20 pages and came accross WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) which looks like it could help, but I am curious as to whether it has any major international SEO limitations before trialing/buying. It seems to allow the option to automatically setup language folder structures as www.domain.com/it/ or www.domain.com/es/ etc which is great and seems to offer easy way of linking out to translators (for extra fee), which could be convenient. However what about the on-page optimization - url names, title tags and other onpage elements - I wonder if anyone has any experiences with using this plugin or any alternatives for it. Hoping for your valued advice!
Algorithm Updates | | emerald0 -
What effect does previous page visits have in SERP?
We've all seen it before, right before a result, you see "You visited this page on ____" What effect does a single visit have? Multiple visits?
Algorithm Updates | | 10JQKAs0