SEO Elements for Canonicalized URLs?
-
I am helping a client with SEO for their ecommerce store. They have around 65 products, but close to 500 URLs all for those same products. Basically they have a bit of an index bloat problem but long story short restructuring was too much of a lift for them, so I got them set up with a canonical URL strategy to ensure all duplicate pages point to one "main" product page.
Getting to the point:
They also need an on-page overhaul. I've created keyword optimized titles, metas, H1s, etc. for each product. Do these elements need to be added to every single one of the 450+ product pages OR do I only need to add them to the 65 "main" product pages that everything else is pointing to, since that will ultimately be the page that gets crawled?
-
Happy to help
-
Thanks for your response! This is how I was leaning as well, but the client is doing the implementation and asked if they needed to update all their URLs, so I wanted to get a second opinion. Maybe this implementation will push them to consolidate
Thanks again!
-
Hiya, my instinct here would be to update both if possible - canonicals are a hint rather than a command, Google will still crawl canonicalised pages and could decide to ignore the canonical if it doesn't think the pages are closely related enough.
Updating the titles etc. on the canonicalised pages can help confirm that they _are _the same content as the pages you're canonicalising them _to. _Plus, worst case, if Google decides to ignore the canonical, the page is at least optimised until you can take stronger action.
If those additional pages really don't have any additional value for visitors I would keep pushing the client to consolidate if you can. Even if they can't do it now, they could be thanking you in a year.
Good luck!
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
-
Adding a parameter to the URL / URL Stracture
Dear Community, I would like to ask a question regarding url structure. We are struggling with shorting urls and we thought to add a "parameter" to the url. Example: domain.com/product**/a/** or domain.com**/a/**product/ Current url structure: domain.com/product/ So we go after and short url contains "/a/" and find the category we want. Is this going to harm our SEO strategies? Any idea is welcome.
Technical SEO | | geofil0 -
Which URL is better?
Hi everyone, Could you please help me with picking out the right URL for my company's website? We are MoonCreate and we make beautiful clothes. Unfortunately, the domain mooncreate.com is not available and I have to choose between mooncreatebrand.com or mooncreatewear.com Which one is better, in your opinion? Look forward to receive your suggestions! Thank you! 🙂
Technical SEO | | kirupa0 -
Numbers in URL
Hey guys! Need your many awesome brains. 🙂 This may be a very basic question but am hoping you can help me out with some insights beyond "because Google says it's better". 🙂 I only recently started working with SEO, and I work for a SaaS website builder company that has millions of open/active user sites, and all our user sites URLs, instead of www.mydomainname.com/gallery or myusername.simplesite.com/about, we use numbers, so www.mysite.com/453112 or myusername.simplesite.com/426521 The Sales manager has asked me to figure out if it will pay off for us in terms of traffic (other benefits?) to change it from the number system to the "proper" and right way of setting up these URLs. He's looking for rather concrete answers, as he usually sits with paid search and is therefore used to the mindset of "if we do x it will yield us y in z months". I'm finding it quite difficult to find case studies/other concrete examples beyond the generic, vague implication that it will simply be "better" (when for example looking at SEO checklists and search engine guidelines). Will it make a difference? How so? I have to convince our developers of the importance and priority of this adjustment, or it will just drown in the many projects they already have. So truly, any insights would be so very welcome. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | michelledemaree2 -
Is Schema markup important for SEO?
I have recently come across the Schema markup and have researched what it's all about. Basically in short it helps search engines identify all the elements of the page. Our competitors have this implementated, so is this important for SEO? We have an e commerce store.
Technical SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Which URL structure is better?
Quick question - Have a real estate site focused on "apartments", but apartments in not part of my company name. That being said, should which of the following URL structures should I use? http://website.com/city/neighborhood/property-name OR http://website.com/city-apartments/neighborhood/property-name
Technical SEO | | ChaseH0 -
Canonicalize IP address
How can I cannocialize IP address for websites in Wordpress and Joomla?
Technical SEO | | ArthurRadtke0 -
/out/ URLs in GWMTs
I am recently seeing some URLs come up as 404s in GWMTs for a client. They look like this: http://client-url/out/www.linkedin.com/company/client-linkedin-name /out/client-url/sub-directory/postname/ We thought they might have something to do with the social plugins but they are all over the place and they are sometime for internal pages on the site. Anyone run into these and know why they are happening?
Technical SEO | | DragonSearch0 -
SEO LINKS
New to S.E.O. so excuse my naivety. I have made lots of new links some of them paid for e.g. Best of the Web but I don’t see any change in the latest competitive link analysis. Some of the links we have been accepted for just do not show. Also the keywords we are trying to promote the most have disappeared off the radar for over 2 weeks now. I think we have followed the optimization suggestions correctly. Please could you enlighten me. Regards Paul www.curtainpolesemporium.co.uk
Technical SEO | | CPE0