Rel: Canonical - checking advice provided by SEO agency
-
Hey all,
We have two brands one bigger and one smaller that are on 2 different domains. We are wanting to repost some of the articles from the smaller brand to the bigger brand and what was a bit of curve ball, our SEO agency advised us NOT to put a rel: canonical on the reposted articles on the bigger brands site.
This is counter to what i'm used to and just wanted to confirm with the gurus out there if this is good advice or bad advice.
Thanks
-
Hello,
When checking canonical advice from an SEO agency, ensure it aligns with best practices. Verify proper implementation, consistent URLs, and adherence to Google's guidelines to avoid potential SEO issues.
Thanks
-
"Rel: Canonical" is a meta tag used in SEO to specify the preferred version of a web page when there are multiple pages with similar or duplicate content. It helps search engines understand which page to prioritize in their rankings. When an SEO agency advises you to check "Rel: Canonical," they are suggesting that you ensure this tag is correctly implemented on your website to improve SEO and avoid content duplication issues.
(PMP Exam Prep) (project management methodologies)(Study abroad) (Canada PR)
-
The advice from your SEO agency not to use rel="canonical" on reposted articles from the smaller brand to the bigger brand is unusual but not necessarily bad. Rel="canonical" is typically used to signal the preferred version of duplicate content. In this case, they might be suggesting that the content should exist separately on both sites without indicating a preference for one over the other. It's essential to discuss this strategy with your SEO agency in more detail to understand their reasoning and how it aligns with your overall SEO and content strategy.
(Canada PR) ( list of documents required for Canada PR from India) (PMP Exam Prep) (Study abroad)
-
@Zehlm said in Rel: Canonical - checking advice provided by SEO agency:
@Redooo
Use rel canonical tag for indexing
Always use a rel canonical tag for indexing. For example if there is a rel canonical tag for: https://www.zehlm.com and I also want other pages showing up in search, then a rel canonical tag for: https://www.zehlm.com/seo.html would also be appropriate. The rel canonical tag should match the url of the page. If the rel canonical tag is omitted then it's visibility will be affected.
Omitting the canonical tag usually will diminish visibility on the page it is missing on because it takes away from the SEO score. Sacrificing the SEO score may not be the best decision if you still need the page visible in SERP. -
The advice you received from your SEO agency regarding the use of rel=canonical tags for reposted articles has generated a legitimate point of consideration. Let's break down the situation:
-
Rel=Canonical Purpose: The rel=canonical tag is primarily used to indicate the preferred version of a webpage when there are duplicate or very similar content across multiple URLs. It helps search engines understand which version to prioritize in their index to prevent duplicate content issues.
-
Reposting Content: When you repost articles from the smaller brand to the bigger brand, there's a potential for duplicate content if both versions exist on different domains. Using rel=canonical tags can help mitigate this issue by indicating the original source of the content.
However, there could be scenarios where using rel=canonical might not be the best approach:
-
Different Branding or Context: If the content is being reposted to the bigger brand but needs to maintain its own identity or context, using a rel=canonical might not be appropriate. Canonical tags suggest that one version is the same as another, which might not be true in this case.
-
Valuable Independent Content: If the reposted content is intended to stand alone and provide unique value to the bigger brand's audience, it might be more suitable to keep it as a separate piece without canonical tags.
-
Cross-Promotion Benefits: Reposting content from the smaller brand to the bigger brand could potentially be seen as cross-promotion or strategic content sharing. In such cases, you might not want to canonicalize the content, as each brand's website could benefit from its presence.
Given these considerations, the advice from your SEO agency might make sense if the reposted content is intended to serve a distinct purpose on the bigger brand's website. However, it's always a good idea to discuss the specifics with your SEO agency and get a clear understanding of their rationale behind this recommendation. They should be able to provide insights tailored to your brands' unique goals and the nature of the content being reposted.
Remember, SEO is often contextual, and what works for one situation might not be ideal for another. Always prioritize the user experience and providing valuable, unique content to your audience while making informed decisions about canonicalization based on your specific scenario.
-
-
@Redooo
Use rel canonical tag for indexing
Always use a rel canonical tag for indexing. For example if there is a rel canonical tag for: https://www.zehlm.com and I also want other pages showing up in search, then a rel canonical tag for: https://www.zehlm.com/seo.html would also be appropriate. The rel canonical tag should match the url of the page. If the rel canonical tag is omitted then it's visibility will be affected. -
Para que quieres poner un rel canonical de un sitio totalmente diferente a otro. No tiene sentido. Deberías de spinear el texto para que no genere contenido duplicado y copiado.
Un saludo.
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
-
Improving SEO for a Niche Blog - Seeking Advice
I am a college student studying Information Sciences and was "hired" by my uncle over the summer to work and maintain his baseball-related website, which he started in 2016. His posts provide very in-depth information but were created without a focus on SEO. I've noticed that a competing site, which seems to have started as an e-commerce site, is ranking higher than my uncle's site for the query "how much does a baseball weigh." Interestingly, this competing site ranks for keywords like "mass of baseball," even though these exact keywords are not present in the post. Given the recent Google updates and changes in rankings, I'm trying to understand: How can an e-commerce site with seemingly less specific content outrank a detailed blog post?
Competitive Research | | sf9090
What strategies can I employ to improve the ranking of my uncle's site for this specific query?
Are there tools or methods I can use to analyze why the competitor is ranking higher and how to address it?
I recognize I am not well-versed in SEO, so any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!0 -
Unsolved Website with no backlinks and a DA of 1 ranks first. Why?
https://www.realestatephotos.melbourne does not have any backlinks and has a DA of 1.
Keyword Explorer | | garrypat
This site ranks first for keywords - real estate photography melbourne and property photography melbourne.
Not sure why.
URL contains keywords and site is ok. But other sites with many links and higher DA rank lower. Why? Garry0 -
"Duplicate without user-selected canonical” - impact to SERPs
Hello, we are facing some issues on our project and we would like to get some advice. Scenario
International SEO | | Alex_Pisa
We run several websites (www.brandName.com, www.brandName.be, www.brandName.ch, etc..) all in French language . All sites have nearly the same content & structure, only minor text (some headings and phone numbers due to different countries are different). There are many good quality pages, but again they are the same over all domains. Goal
We want local domains (be, ch, fr, etc.) to appear in SERPs and also comply with Google policy of local language variants and/or canonical links. Current solution
Currently we don’t use canonicals, instead we use rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default": <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-BE" href="https://www.brandName.be/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CA" href="https://www.brandName.ca/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CH" href="https://www.brandName.ch/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.brandName.fr/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-LU" href="https://www.brandName.lu/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brandName.com/" /> Issue
After Googlebot crawled the websites we see lot of “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” in Coverage/Excluded report (Google Search Console) for most domains. When we inspect some of those URLs we can see Google has decided that canonical URL points to (example): User-declared canonical: None
Google-selected canonical: …same page, but on a different domain Strange is that even those URLs are on Google and can be found in SERPs. Obviously Google doesn’t know what to make of it. We noticed many websites in the same scenario use a self-referencing approach which is not really “kosher” - we are afraid if we use the same approach we can get penalized by Google. Question: What do you suggest to fix the “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” in our scenario? Any suggestions/ideas appreciated, thanks. Regards.0 -
Shopify Canonicals for Tagged Filters
I've been researching this topic endlessly and thought I had arrived at a solution but Screaming Frog indicates my solution was not successful. Problem: I used tags to filter my collections pages. The result, I discovered, was the creation of dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, of additional collection URLs for each possible permutation of tag filters. I would like to make the collection page URL, with no tag filters, the canonical. Proposed Solution: I found the following code described somewhere as the solution: {% if template contains 'collection' and current_tags %} {% else %} {% endif %} However, I crawled my site with Screaming Frog and found that the canonical link element is still listed as the URL with the tags included. The crawler does recognizes the "noindex" instruction. Any ideas on what the best move is here?
Technical SEO | | vgusvg0 -
SEO impact classifieds website
Hi, I'm part of an organization running a classifieds platform in Spain. (Mercadonline.es) We are hit by Google penalties since a few weeks, possibly caused by numerous errors we are experiencing. Most frequent errors are 404's and duplicate content (titles tags etc) since the nature of our website is dynamic. Many ads change daily, are added or removed, causing Googlebots (and others) to flag us and not being able to see our more unique content. Until what part of our platform should we be indexed? Since we have +34,000 pages indexed (mostly due to internal filter pages) I would need a systematic solution for us to display relevant and unique content, with enough usage of keywords that can bring us back up - we are actually ranked <50 on google for most of our main keywords. It is costing us precious time and money since we can only aquire our visitors (adwords etc) and not being to attract any organically. I can go in more detail with someone who can give me a bit more direction. Your answer is much appreciated! Ivor
Technical SEO | | ivordg0 -
Should we rel=nofollow these links ?
On our website, we have a section of free to low-cost tools that could help small business increase their productivity without spending big bucks. For example, this is the page for online collaboration tools: http://www.bdc.ca/EN/solutions/smart_tech/tech_advice/free_low_cost_applications/Pages/online_collaboration_tools.aspx None of the company pay anything to be on these list. We actually do quite a lot of research to chose which should be listed there and which should not. Recently, one of the company in our lists asked us to add rel=nofollow to the link to their website because they add been targeted by a manual action on Google and want their link profile to be as clean as possible (probably too clean). My question is : Should we add rel=nofollow to all these links ? Thanks, Jean-François Monfette
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0 -
Sub Domain SEO
I am thinking to Add Sub Domains to get better rankings for Local Searches. So I will develop City Specific Sites with Specific Language. For Example qatar.wisnetsol.com. IT will be in Arabic. If my Good standing and Ranking on Google for wisnetsol.com will help my subdomain to rank better? if we setup wisnetsol.com/qatar, how it can target Qatar in Google Webmaster tools? Will links for qatar.wisnetsol.com and wisnetsol.com are seprate? What do you think about this strategy? Is it good or bad?
Technical SEO | | Khuram0