Will Google Visit Non-Canonicalized Page Again and Return Its Page's Original Ranking?
-
I have 2 questions about canonicalization.
1. Will Google ever visit Page A again if after it has been canonicalized to Page B?
2. If Google will still visit Page A and found that it is not canonicalizing to Page B already, will the original rankings and traffic of Page A returned to the way before it's canonicalized?
Thanks.
-
Hi Guys...sorry, one more question here.
About the recovery of rankings for canonicalized page after removing canonical tag, the theories seem very true but are there any case studies or direct experiences which proves these theories?
-
Thank you for your advice! Greatly appreciated
-
Thanks. That answers my query.
-
If the canonicalization is accepted by Google and there is no additional UGC on Page A, then no Page A will not rank.
If the canonicalization is not accepted (i.e. the pages have enough differences to where Google does not feel the pages should be canonicalized) then Page A can rank.
If the pages are identical, but there is some unique content on Page A such as a comment, then Page A can rank for the unique comment.
-
One more question. If page A has been canonicalized to page B, will Page A rank ? As according to search engines, Page B is the preferred page Now. I know it may seem innocuous query to you. But would like to know ?
-
Didn't expected such a detailed explanation to my query :). Thanks a lot Ryan for making SEO seems less daunting to me with your insightful answers.
-
Search engines follow links. If there are links on a page, then Google wants to know what is on the page. There are many reasons to visit a canonicalized page.
1. Canonical links are a suggestion. Google does not have to agree, and may choose to index the page rather then follow through to the canonical version of the page.
2. Sometimes two pages can have the same core content, but different UGC. Let's say you write a great article on SEO and post it on your site. Later, you post the article on the SEOmoz blog with an agreement that the SEOmoz version of the article offers a canonical link to your page.
When people read the SEOmoz article, they may offer comments (UGC) which offer questions, answers, links, etc. All of these comments are only on the SEOmoz page, not the page on your site. Depending on what a user searches for, the result could be the SEOmoz page, even though it has a canonical link to the page on your site.
3. As you shared, the canonical tag can change. A search engine needs to check to see if the canonical tag changed, or a noindex tag has been added, or any of the links on the page have changed, etc. Also the content could change as well.
-
O.k, so Google will visit the page A, but what purpose does it serve ? The original page is B now. Just curious to know...
-
Will Google ever visit Page A again if after it has been canonicalized to Page B?
Yes. Google will visit your pages by following links even if the page is canonicalized. I would imagine they may choose to visit the page less frequently (that is just my guess) but they do revisit the page.
If Google will still visit Page A and found that it is not canonicalizing to Page B already, will the original rankings and traffic of Page A returned to the way before it's canonicalized?
Yes BUT I can only assume the page was canonicalized for a reason, and that reason being the content was duplicated. If you have a duplicate content issue you will not be happy with the result. If you remove the canonical tag because you have modified the page's content to be unique, then you can expect the page to be indexed normally.
It may take up to a month for all the ranking to settle for the page, but it will happen.
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
-
Is Chamber of Commerce membership a "paid" link, breaking Google's rules?
Hi guys, This drives me nuts. I hear all the time that any time value is exchanged for a link that it technically violates Google's guidelines. What about real organizations, chambers of commerce, trade groups, etc. that you are a part of that have online directories with DO-follow links. On one hand people will say these are great links with real value outside of search and great for local SEO..and on the other hand some hardliners are saying that these technically should be no-follow. Thoughts???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Why isn't the canonical tag on my client's Magento site working?
The reason for this mights be obvious to the right observer, but somehow I'm not able to spot the reason why. The situation:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
I'm doing an SEO-audit for a client. When I'm checking if the rel=canonical tag is in place correctly, it seems like it: view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15) (line nr 15) Anyone seing something wrong with this canonical? When I perform a site:http://quickplay.no/ search, I find that there's many url's indexed that ought to have been picked up by the canonical-tag: (see picture) ..this for example view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15 I really can't see why this page is getting indexed, when the canonical-tag is in place. Anybody who can? Sincerely 🙂 GMdWg0K0 -
Scraped content ranking above the original source content in Google.
I need insights on how “scraped” content (exact copy-pasted version) rank above the original content in Google. 4 original, in-depth articles published by my client (an online publisher) are republished by another company (which happens to be briefly mentioned in all four of those articles). We reckon the articles were re-published at least a day or two after the original articles were published (exact gap is not known). We find that all four of the “copied” articles rank at the top of Google search results whereas the original content i.e. my client website does not show up in the even in the top 50 or 60 results. We have looked at numerous factors such as Domain authority, Page authority, in-bound links to both the original source as well as the URLs of the copied pages, social metrics etc. All of the metrics, as shown by tools like Moz, are better for the source website than for the re-publisher. We have also compared results in different geographies to see if any geographical bias was affecting results, reason being our client’s website is hosted in the UK and the ‘re-publisher’ is from another country--- but we found the same results. We are also not aware of any manual actions taken against our client website (at least based on messages on Search Console). Any other factors that can explain this serious anomaly--- which seems to be a disincentive for somebody creating highly relevant original content. We recognize that our client has the option to submit a ‘Scraper Content’ form to Google--- but we are less keen to go down that route and more keen to understand why this problem could arise in the first place. Please suggest.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ontarget-media0 -
What referrer is shown in http request when google crawler visit a page?
Is it legit to show different content to http request having different referrer? case a: user view one page of the site with plenty of information about one brand, and click on a link on that page to see a product detail page of that brand, here I don't want to repeat information about the brand itself case b: a user view directly the product detail page clicking on a SERP result, in this case I would like to show him few paragraph about the brand Is it bad? Anyone have experience in doing it? My main concern is google crawler. Should not be considered cloaking because I am not differentiating on user-agent bot-no-bot. But when google is crawling the site which referrer will use? I have no idea, does anyone know? When going from one link to another on the website, is google crawler leaving the referrer empty?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | max.favilli0 -
Any reasons why social media properties are ranking higher than the site's own name?
The site below has social media properties and other sites coming up before it's own listing even for the exact search of the site name. Any ideas why this is happening? Link Any input is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO5Team0 -
Page Rank
Hi guys I have an ecommerce in prestashop (unfortunatelly I can not change it at this moment). I made all main activities both off and on the page. And actually it is working pretty well since I am up on the SERP for all the target keywords. BUT, the page rank still be 0. The site is about 2 years old. My main competitor has the same domain authority than mine, but he has a page rank > 0 Moreover I have more quality links then it has, but it is older Any suggestions? Many thanks Ciao Diego
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrelax0 -
Google+ Pages on Google SERP
Do you think that a Google+ Page (not profile) could appear on the Google SERP as a Rich Snippet Author? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | overalia0 -
Are links to on-page content crawled / have any effect on page rank?
Lets say I have a really long article that begins with links to <a name="something">anchors on the same page.</a> <a name="something"></a> <a name="something">E.g.,</a> Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc, allowing the user to scroll down to different content. There are also other links on this page that link to other pages. A few questions: Googlebot arrives on the page. Does it crawl links that point to anchors on the same page? When link juice is divided among all the links on the page, do these links count and page rank is then lost? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic0