Canonical - unexpected page ranking
-
We are getting good ranking for an unexpected page, rathewr than the one we were trying to get ranking for.
Should we put a canonical on the 'unexpected page' to the page we would like to receive the ranking for - or do we risk losing the ranking?
Any suggestions welcomed.
Ian
-
Thanks Martin, looked at Moz's guide on Canonicals. Have a much clearer view of them now. Thanks for the feedback we will work on the pages we want to rank and monitor them.
Ian
-
Full support for this answer
-
Hi Ian,
Pointing the canonical tag to the right URL that you want to rank won't work like you're hoping for and is not what the canonical tag is at the end meant to do. What I would focus on is optimizing the page that you want to rank, for a start you likely should look into adding a link from the current ranking page to the one that you want to start ranking, if you haven't already done that. At the end that's going to help you with both ranks the right page, but also might help the second page to be visible in the top 10 so you take multiple spots for an increased share of voice.
Martijn.
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
-
Page Ranking Incorrect According to Moz
Hello, A while ago I published an article on our blog (HERE) and ensured that it meets all Moz's criteria for a good ranking. Moz scores my article at 96%, which is great. However, Google does not show my link anywhere, even that the target keyword has a difficulty score of 5% only. Any idea why this page is not doing good on Google? The article URL is: https://missionquest.org/how-to-choose-a-missionary-service-agency/ The target keyword is: Missionary Service Agency. Thank you for your help. Mission Quest
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mission-Quest0 -
Will more comprehensive content on product pages help improve ranking?
We're working to improve the ranking of one of our product landing pages. The page that currently ranks #1 has a very simple, short layout with the main keyword many times on the page with otherwise very little text. One thought we had was to make a more comprehensive page including more info on the features and benefits of the product. The thought being that a longer form page would be more valuable and potentially look better to Google if the other SEO pieces are on par. Does that make sense to do? Or would it be better to keep the product page simple and make some more related content on our blog linking back to that landing page? Thanks in advance to any help you can provide!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bob_Kastner0 -
New Website Launch - what to do with the URLs of the pages with ranks
Hey there, So, we are "redesigning" our website, it will have a new user journey and overall layout, use, and feel. Situation: Previously, most of our keywords ranked over time organically though all of them pull up our domain.com as the landing page. Now that we are redesigning the site, most of the keywords pointing to the home page will now have their own page. Keywords properly grouped and content will now be on topic and focused per page. Q: What are the things that we need to do so we won't lose those keywords? Appreciate your help. Also, if you can cite specific SEO checklist when redesigning a site, that'll be a great help! Thanks! Jac
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jac.reyes0 -
Our client's web property recently switched over to secure pages (https) however there non secure pages (http) are still being indexed in Google. Should we request in GWMT to have the non secure pages deindexed?
Our client recently switched over to https via new SSL. They have also implemented rel canonicals for most of their internal webpages (that point to the https). However many of their non secure webpages are still being indexed by Google. We have access to their GWMT for both the secure and non secure pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
Should we just let Google figure out what to do with the non secure pages? We would like to setup 301 redirects from the old non secure pages to the new secure pages, but were not sure if this is going to happen. We thought about requesting in GWMT for Google to remove the non secure pages. However we felt this was pretty drastic. Any recommendations would be much appreciated.0 -
Domain Authority: 23, Page Authority: 33, Can My Site Still Rank?
Greetings: Our New York City commercial real estate site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Key MOZ metric are as follows: Domain Authority: 23
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Page Authority: 33
28 Root Domains linking to the site
179 Total Links. In the last six months domain authority, page authority, domains linking to the site have declined. We have focused on removing duplicate content and low quality links which may have had a negative impact on the above metrics. Our ranking has dropped greatly in the last two months. Could it be due to the above metrics? These numbers seem pretty bad. How can I reverse without engaging in any black hat behavior that could work against me in the future? Ideas?
Thanks, Alan Rosinsky0 -
Can internal links from a blog harm the ranking of a page?
Here is the situation: A site was moved from its original domain to its new domain, and at the same time, the external wordpress.com blog was moved to a subdirectory, making it an onsite blog. The two pages that rank the highest on the site have virtually no links from the blog and no external links, while all the other pages are linked extensively from the blog and have backlinks. Their targeted keywords are not so much easier to rank than the other pages for that to be the sole cause. To confuse the matter even more, there was a manual penalty affecting incoming links which was removed last month. The old site, which has many backlinks to the new site, is still in Google's index. The old blog however, has been redirected page by page and is not in Google's index. Most of the blog posts are short 1-paragraph company updates and potentially considered low quality content because of that (?) The common denominator among the two highest ranked pages (I'm talking top 3 in SERP v. page 3 or 4) seems to be either the lack of external backlinks or the lack of internal links from the blog. Could there be an issue with the blog such that internal links from it are detrimental rather than helpful?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn0 -
Category Pages up - Product Pages down... what would help?
Hi I mentioned yesterday how one of our sites was losing rank on product pages. What steps do you take to improve the SERPS of product pages, in this case home/category/product is the tree. There isn't really any internal linking, except one link from the category page to each product, would setting up a host of internal links perhaps "similar products" linking them together be a place to start? How can I improve my ranking of these more deeply internal pages? Not just internal links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0 -
Too many on page links - product pages
Some of the pages on my client's website have too many on page links because they have lists of all their products. Is there anything I should/could do about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0