Canonical tag, CNAME and 301 redirect
-
I have a website with a couple of domains pointing to one IP address. Let's say I have two domains www.example.com and www.example.ca
I also see during my SEO analysis that the example.com and the www.example.com (same for the example.ca and the www.example.ca) are triggering server responses.
How do I deal with this issue for best SEO. Canonical links? CNAME, or 301 redirects? thanks
-
Oh yes... it was a mistyping from my part, sorry
-
Gianluca, thanks for your time. Before I ask my web host to do this one point of clarification. In step 2 you mention redirect of example.com to www.example.com Since www.example.ca is my focus should this be example.ca to www.example.ca or is it correct as stated?
-
It always better to do a 301... also because exists also Bing as a search engine, and it does not know what you have done in GWT
-
thanks very much. As suggested above I just went to google webmaster tools and did specify www.example.com and www.example.ca as the preferred domains. Do I still need to do 301 redirects as well or just a redirect from www.example.com to www.example.ca
-
301 all the other versions to the www.example.ca domain.
I mean...
- redirect 301 the .com domain to the .ca domain (this will take care both of sub-domain and root domain)
- redirect 301 example.com to www.example.com via .htaccess
If you don't do it you have a massive duplication issue... being www.example.ca stronger in link building, it is normal that the other (which are dupes) doesn't go well.
-
all four (www.example.com, example.com, www.example.ca and example.ca) have same content. I have focused all of my SEO efforts on the www.example.ca version. It now ranks well and has good authority and PR but I am concerned about the other versions. I though of adding a canonical tag to the header of the pages on the website making the www.example.ca version the canonical version and then doing 301 redirects (Do I redirect the www.example.com to www.example.ca and then redirect the example.ca to the www.example.ca or is there more to this?). I can easily go the cname route with my server host but I had heard that a 301 is better. Does this added info add clarity to what I am asking? thanks very much for your answers and time til now
-
First of all you have to choose what u are going to use www or no-www, then stick to this! I suggest the www version as most of the people use this when typing in urls directly in their browser.
Then go to your Google Webmaster Tools and set your preferred domain to your choice.
Last but not least make sure you have a redirect for the traffic that does use url without www... You can do this with an .htaccess file. This is a small text file that can handle your redirects.
I don't quite understand the other part, do all the domains share the same content? If so, you should use those canonical tags to indicate where the original content comes from...
-
Delete this for double posting (sorry)
-
In fact that's the way to have just the sub-domain www. appearing online.
And, sorry, I don't really understand the .ca e .com question... does those domains show the same content. In that case one of the two (.com if you target public worldwide or .ca if you target only Canada) should be redirected 301 to the other.
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
-
What is the difference between 301 redirects and backlinks?
i have seen some 301 redirects on my site billsonline, can anyone please explain the difference between backlinks and 301 redirects, i have read some articles where the writer was stating that 301 are not good for website.
Technical SEO | | aliho0 -
Canonical Tags Before HTTPS MIgration
Hi Guys I previously asked a question that was helpfully answered on this forum, but I have just one last question to ask. I'm migrating a site tomorrow from http to https. My one question is that it was mentioned that I may need to "add canonical tags to the http pages, pointing to their https equivalent prior to putting the server level redirect in place. This is to ensure that you won't be causing yourself issues if the redirect fails for any reason." This is an e-commerce site with a number of links, is there a quick way of doing this? Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | ruislip180 -
To 301 or not to 301?
I have a client that is having a new site built. Their old site (WP) does not use the trailing / at the end of urls. The new site is using most of the same url names but IS using the /. For instance, the old site would be www.example.com/products and the new site, also WP, will be www.example.com/products/. WordPress will resolve either way, but my question is whether or not to go in and redirect each matching non / page to the new url that has the /. I don't want to leave any link juice on the table but if I can keep the juice without doing a few hundred 301s that certainly wouldn't suck. Any thoughts? Sleepless in KVegas
Technical SEO | | seorocket0 -
After I 301 redirect duplicate pages to my rel=canonical page, do I need to add any tags or code to the non canonical pages?
I have many duplicate pages. Some pages have 2-3 duplicates. Most of which have Uppercase and Lowercase paths (generated by Microsoft IIS). Does this implementation of 301 and rel=canonical suffice? Or is there more I could do to optimize the passing of duplicate page link juice to the canonical. THANK YOU!
Technical SEO | | PFTools0 -
Can you do a 301 redirect without a hosting account?
Trying to retire domain1 and 301 it to domain2 - just don't want to get stuck having to pay the old hosting provider simply to serve a .htaccess file with the redirect rule.
Technical SEO | | TitanDigital0 -
CNAME redirect for Press Releases
Our company is moving our press release section over to Business Wire. Business Wire will be hosting the press releases on their servers http//ourcompany.newshq.businesswire.com, but we want it to display as if these are hosted on our site www.ourcompany/press-releases/. This is where our press releases are hosted now. They are recommending using a CNAME redirect to essentially mask their URL and display ours. We don't want to lose out on the search value that our press release area has built up over time. Will the CNAME redirect cause any SEO problems?
Technical SEO | | ryanwats0 -
Best practice canonical tags
I WAS WONDERING WHAT THE BESTPRACTICE IS WHEN USING CANONICAL TAGS: or 2:
Technical SEO | | NEWCRAFT0 -
Should there be a canonical tag on my 404 error page?
In my crawl diagnostics, I notice some 4xx client errors. They are appearing for pages that no longer exist, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Shouldn't they just be dealt as 404's? Anyway, on closer inspection I noticed that my 404 error page contains a canonical tag which points to the missing page. Could this be the issue? Is it a good idea to remove the canonical tag from this error page? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Leighm0