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Absolute vs. Relative Canonical Links

Intermediate & Advanced SEO

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SimpleSearch Subscriber last edited by

Hi Moz Community,

I have a client using relative links for their canonicals (vs. absolute)

Google appears to be following this just fine, but bing, etc. are still sending organic traffic to the non-canonical links.

It's a drupal setup.

Anyone have advice? Should I recommend that all canonical links be absolute? They are strapped for resources, so this would be a PITA if it won't make a difference.

Thanks
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SimpleSearch Subscriber @LoganRay last edited by

thanks, I agree. I appreciate your help.
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LoganRay last edited by

Hi,

I'd definitely recommend using absolute URLs for canonical tags. Part of their benefit is preventing duplication due to www vs. non-www and https/http issues. If you're using relative, you don't get to specify protocol or www preference.

Additionally, you don't want to only solve for Google. They've obviously got the largest share or organic search, but that other search engines should still index/crawl content accordingly.
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