Canonical Fix Value & Pointer To Good Instructions?
-
Could you tell me whether the "canonical fix" is still a relevant and valuable SEO method?
I'm talking about the .htaccess (or ISAPI for Microsoft) level fix to make all of the non-www page URLs on a website redirect to the www. version - so that SEO "value" isn't split between the two.
I'm NOT talking about the newer <rel= canonical="" http:="" ...="">tag that goes in the HEAD section on an HTML page - as a fix for some duplicate content issues (I guess). </rel=>
I still hear about the latter, but less about the former. But the former is different than the latter right - it doesn't replace it?
And I'm not sure if the canonical fix is relevant to a WordPress-based website - are you?
Also I can never find any page or article on the Web, etc. that explains clearly how to implement the canonical fix for Apache and Microsoft servers. Could you please point me to one?
Thanks in advance!
-
Yes it is still relevant, the www is a old unix standard but is not nesasary today and i believe makes domain names less memerable and is a confusion when talking of root and sub domains.
Your in luck, I just finished a tutoiral for microsoft IIS servers. i will be doing more including how to do this in code, but for now, i only have the Domain name fix
-
Hi Denis.
When you refer to "canonical" most everyone will believe you are referring to the canonical meta tag.
With respect to the .htaccess "fix" you are referring to, it is a 301 redirect. When you purchase a domain such as "myexample.com", you are buying rights to a combination of a Top Level Domain (such as .com) plus a domain. You can add "www" or almost any prefix to the domain, but that is referred to as a sub-domain.
The confusion: when the internet began most site names used the "www" subdomain to represent themselves. It became a standard. Later some site owners wanted to shorten their URL and dropped the subdomain. To help this process most hosts set a default to where the www subdomain mirrors the root domain. This mirroring is NOT required and does not occur on all servers. Any site could should to show completely different content on their www subdomain from their root domain. Simply put, www.myexample.com <> myexample.com. They are two different URLs which could show completely different content.
Search engines understand the above information and therefore if your site does not contain a proper 301 redirect or other adjustment for your www vs non-www URL format, your website will be duplicated. When users search for your web pages, some will appear in the search engines index with the www prefix, and others without. The real issue is when users link to your website, they will link to both formats of the URL and thereby split your backlink authority. This is a major SEO issue.
To fix the problem a 301 redirect needs to be placed using a Regex expression. Regex is a replacement computing language. The statement basically will say "if anyone tries to access a web page on my site that does not show a sub-domain, redirect the user to the same page on the www subdomain".
This process is still highly relevant to SEO, and will continue to be relevant for years. The only way for it to realistically stop being relevant is for servers to stop mirroring the www and non-www URLs. This process is relevant to WordPress and every website regardless of what software is chosen to produce the site.
The HTACESS code is below. I do not work with IIS so perhaps someone else can assist you with that code. Either way, you likely have managed hosting in which case I highly advise you asking your web service provider to make the change. The .htaccess file controls all access to your site. The slightest error of any nature can instantly bring your site offline, or cause major SEO or security issues. Even using the correct code in the wrong order can cause issues. It is simply not a place for anyone other then a trained web server tech to be working.
Redirect www to non-www:
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Redirect non-www to www:
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
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
-
How to Implement AMP for Single Blog Post?
Hello Moz Team, I would like to implement AMP for my single blog post not on whole blog. Is it possible? if Yes then How? Note - I am already using GTM for my website abcd.com but I would like to use for my blog post only and my blog is like - abcd.com/blog..............let me clarify Blog Post means - abcd.com/blog/my-favorite-dress Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Johny123450 -
Title & Keywords
Hi Quick question on arrangement of keywords in titles. I know the order isn't so important anymore, but would there be a real issue if I want to rank for 'Henry Xtra' but my title reads 'Numatic Henry Xtra Vacuum Cleaner' Rather than 'Henry Xtra Vacuum Cleaner' ?? Will it really make much difference? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Mega Good Bulk Keyword Tool
I have over 1000 keywords to sort out , I need a tool that picks up on variations and symmons. Does anyone know of a very good tool that is available? If not I'll do it the long way round with Excel 😞
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
What is a good, structured link building campaign?
I feel like I've tried everything up to this point. I also survived all of the recent Google updates, including the recent EMD update (my site is an EMD). Also I am in the financial sector. I blog every day, I've made some great infographics. I have a very nice website (much better than the competition's), I've done my on-page SEO. I've done the basic link building too. I've hit good business directories, good blog directories (like Technorati), and infographic directories. I've done a bit of comment linkbuilding but I don't see that being very fruitful. I also have a large twitter following + a twitter tribe that shares all of my blog posts. I can't say I've managed to build any sort of community however. My traffic has grown from 0 to anywhere from 80 to 160 visitors every day in just 3 months, and I am happy with that progress but it seems like I have plateaued. Sure I will continue creating content, but what can I do about link building? That's where the results are probably going to come from. I've read all the articles about it, took advice from LinkBuildingSchool.com... but at this point, I'm not sure how to continue. I dont want to continue going after blog comment links, I want quality. Any advice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MangoMan160 -
Rel canonical and duplicate subdomains
Hi, I'm working with a site that has multiple sub domains of entirely duplicate content. So, the production level site that visitors see is (for made-up illustrative example): 123abc456.edu Then, there are sub domains which are used by different developers to work on their own changes to the production site, before those changes are pushed to production: Larry.123abc456.edu Moe.123abc456.edu Curly.123abc456.edu Google ends up indexing these duplicate sub domains, which is of course not good. If we add a canonical tag to the head section of the production page (and therefor all of the duplicate sub domains) will that cause some kind of problem... having a canonical tag on a page pointing to itself? Is it okay to have a canonical tag on a page pointing to that same page? To complete the example... In this example, where our production page is 123abc456.edu, our canonical tag on all pages (this page and therefor the duplicate subdomains) would be: Is that going to be okay and fix this without causing some new problem of a canonical tag pointing to the page it's on? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Is this a good strategy?
Okay, so let's say I have a landing page or an ecommerce website with limited content. If I start a blog and write quality posts that have anchor text linking back to my homepage, then bookmark the hell out of those blog posts, post to twitter, cite the post on Q&A websites, etc . . . would that be an effective strategy beyond the normal stuff like directory submisson and blog comments?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanHenry0 -
SEO for Korea - Naver & Daum
Google and Yahoo have very little market penetration in the Korean markets. Instead, the popular search engines are Naver and Daum. Naver seems to like keeping traffic within its own network of sites. Does anyone have tips for what things might work to increase search visibility in Korea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | art-boy0 -
Ranking & Traffic drops in last month
Over the last month, our rankings have been in a slow slide - that is until this week, when they absolutely crashed. Here are some example phrases: Phrase 11-Mar 5-Mar bug shields 24 9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShawnHerrick
floor mats 25 14
nerf bars 23 12
running boards 61 14
snow plows 25 18 For the life of me, I can't see what would have caused such drastic changes. Our site is almost completely unique content. Some things, like Warranty & Install instructions, are from the manufacturer to protect us from liabilities. We come up with our own feature text, and we have custom written articles, blog posts, research guides, etc. We also appear to be the only one of our competitors being affected in this fashion. Any thoughts would be helpful. Domain is realtruck.com.0