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I agree with Andy,

I use it as a guidance tool on any website i build. It serves a purpose, to check things are understood how they should be by a predetermined standard. But like any other automated tool it compares to set requirements that cannot always be met and cannot identify and ok these exceptions.

As long as you understand the error its pointing out and why its pointing it out, and know that despite this the code is rendering correctly and all outcomes are working as expected then there is no problem.

From an SEO stand point, aslong as google see's your site how you want it too i think it is a very very minor factor. Hell all of google returns errors of some variety.

Looks fine to me, i think you misunderstand Mistake 2

They are using an absolute URL

If they did the "mistake 2" their canonical tag would look like

You canonical tags should always be absolute for good practice

is correct

or any variant of this would be wrong

Sorry just want to check i understand this,

The product is originally created as domain.com/123456.html and is utilised at this url for a period of time.

You get the canonical url of domain.com/product-title.html later the day the product goes live.

You then create the canonical url and insert the canonical tags at a later time?

If all these are correct then it could explain why your having issues.

Google will crawl and index 123456.html pretty quickly, if this is the base url the product is created at you will most likely find that the links off your category pages use this url and any initial links use this url, this is bad for what you are trying to achieve.

When you then change to the canonical you create a situation where you have 2 copies of the page. 1 with loads of links pointing to it, especially internally, and another with no links. But your trying to tell google that the one with no links is the main version. I would bet this is why it is indexing both.

Even if  you change all of the links and add the correct canonical tag it can take time for google to change, even then it can choose to ignore it (it can be frustrating).

Ideally you want to create the canonical URL first or at the same time as the 123456.html url and instantly add all the canonical tags, this way that all default links that a created internally point to it, and the first time it gets crawled it is already pointing to the canonical url.

In your current timetable, I would say redirects would be more suitable than canonical for both the order you release them and the general use.

About your plan,

If your timings are correct, then sure, that doesn't sound like too much of a time commitment and i think the benefit would be worth it. What I would expect to see within the month is the de-indexing of all the 123456.html versions

**Just remember, check all your canonicals actually need a 301 before doing them on bulk. You may have places on your site that you have canonicals because both versions of a page are needed, don't redirect these in your haste

Cracking response Don, can say honestly say i've learnt something today.

I have done work with HTML5 and heard of this concept but never gave it any attention as every major SEO site always talks about a single H1 being best due to the variation in different SERPS, the rise in bing traffic etc etc.

Would you say you have had good results, across multiple SERPS, with multiple H1's implimented with HTML5? Or in google only?

Are SERPS activly distinguishing different page sections with HTML5 yet or is there still the danger of H1 dilution with over use?

The article is nearly 2 years old, is there any more recent discussion on the subject (google searches lead me to the same article).

P.S: Apologies i guess im high-jacking the thread, so if don responds I will leave it there so the original poster can get the answers he wants.

Hi there,

You have kind of answered your own question in my opinion.

"The usage is quite different (indoor vs. outdoor)" & "the specific outdoor categories and products don't map logically to specific indoor ones"

You only want to be redirecting if the location is useful to the customer. Thinking "i dont want to loose the authority i've built up", whilst a valid chain of thought doesn't mean you should redirect it somewhere for the sake of it

I would personally take 1 of 3 approaches

1. Find a suitable replacement line of products from another supplier so you have somewhere valid to sent the customers
2. 404 the pages and accept you no longer offer a service that users searching for this phrase would find useful
3. Write an informative article / piece on the subject, highlighting the possible use of an outdoor version instead of the indoor as a place-holder piece of content or permanent replacement until new content can be sourced.

Some may disagree but thats what I would do

Thanks for the response Andy but i think i have solved it.

It belive the links redirect as originally posted, but i found a link set to the original link http://www.domain.co.uk/blog

I have updated this link and as hopefully this will stop the error in Moz.

Thanks for taking a glance though

Thanks for the latest responses guys

I have researched it into the grave and it the way Magento generates the sitemap makes it impossible for me to exclude these URLS.

I will just unblock them from robots, and make them all noindex. This seems to solve all problems, i will then block them when im 100% sure they are unindexed.

Thanks Again chaps.

Big help as always.

Rand,

I am a UK user.

I just went onto the keyword difficulty page and it said it is being removed from June 2nd to be replaced by the keyword explorer tool. Whilst I welcome this change as I love the keyword explorer, as a UK user i rely on the keyword difficulty tool for volume metrics as they keyword explorer doesn't yet show these for the UK.

Why the haste to remove this tool? Its a vital part of the puzzle for me until the explorer is fully operational. Could it not stick around until the explorer is fully functional?

Thanks

Hi Pete,

Andy nails most things so ill just talk about the "how different part".

Google is very good at identifying the structure of a sentence and determining its meaning. To simplify things I always look at it like this

"It is warm" is the same as "It is hot"

changing text like this and hoping its unique is asking for trouble. Instead try to write as if you are a different personality appealing to a different type of person within the context of the site.

Site: 1 Mr technical writes the content for this site. Your all about the technical features, why they outshine the other specifications and why thats good.

Site 2: Mr indulgent writes for this site, he is less concerned with the technical and is all about actually using the product. He talks about the ease of use and how great if feels to use etc.

Site 3: Mr in the middle, he has a descent amount of respect for the technical elements and mentions them, and has a more speculative approach of explaining why this would be good.

These three personalities all talk very differently, use a different pool of words, create these persona's and be them as you write. This will give you the base difference to make identical information very different.

To combat similar products, my approach has been to not try to distinguish them too much but to engage with the similar products and talk about them. For example product A is the same as product B except product B has a special paint on it that makes it look good so it costs more. So product A is all about value, its the cheapest in the range so great value for money, affordable but with all the necessary perks. Product B is luxurious, not only does it have everything product A has but looks dang good and is a real head turner.

This approach allows you include all the important content needed to get the word count up and make it a good page but present in a way that is very different.

Nah moz is smart enough to auto detect the changes and adjust accordingly.

Make sure all your 301 redirect are in place and over a week or 2 moz should begin listing the https as google index's then and replaces your http.

Morning Mozzers,

We have finally come to the point where we can start to focus on making good original content.

We were wondering how you guys come up with ideas for your content. We are currently doing lots of keyword research to gather ideas and subject areas. But we are struggling with 'angles of attack'.

Being an eCommerce site it is easy to do lots of "The 5 best products for this" type of content. But we feel there is limited value in these especially if we want to gain links to our articles in future as valued content.

How do you come up with your ideas for more valuable and linkable content especially in very niche product areas.

Thanks all.