Any penalty for having rel=canonical tags on every page?
-
For some reason every webpage of our website (www.nathosp.com) has a rel=canonical tag. I'm not sure why the previous SEO manager did this, but we don't have any duplicate content that would require a canonical tag.
Should I remove these tags? And if so, what's the advantage - or disadvantage of leaving them in place?
Thank you in advance for your help.
-Josh Fulfer
-
There isn't a direct penalty for having rel="canonical" tags on every page, no, as long as you are correctly utilizing them (i.e. don't set the href of the tag to an invalid or non-existent URL). If there is even the possibility of duplicate content on your website, it is best to use canonical tags.
For websites serving straight HTML files, both http://www.example.com/index.html and http://www.example.com/ likely serve the same content.
If you use a framework like ASP.NET MVC, it would by default return duplicate content for both http://www.example.com/ and http://www.example.com/Home/Index.
Choose one or the other and set your canonical tag to that:
(note: the trailing slash is optional - just be consistent with including it or not)
-
You can use a canonical tag on page A, to point to A, telling that this is the original, teh reason for this is when people scrape your site they will point back home.
i belive thats is what they were getting at
you would only point it at B if B was a duplicate.
-
Ryan - I appreciate your help. My initial thought too was that I could remove it to clean up the code. However, I was unaware that the tag helps with dynamically generated pages - which ours are.
Thank you for your thorough response.
-
as far as i can see josh, the canonical URLs on your site are doing what they should be doing. I havn't looked to deep into it, but it seems like your products all refer back to product category pages, so that is the right way to use them.
-
I have never heard of anyone being penalised for having it on every page. Plus I can't see that ever happening unless it has been implemented incorrectly of course.
-
page A has content about apples. page B has content about bubblegum. Canonical tag states that page B should refer to page A. What is the point of that? all link juice, all ranking potential is passed to page A, even though page B has very different content. So page A MIGHT appear in search results about bubblegum, but page B will not because it is passing all link juice and rank potential to page A about apples. People stop going to page A when looking for bubblegum because it is irrelevant, and bounce rates increase.
Dont think you need documentation to get this. If you have all pages redirecting bots via canonical urls to the SAME page, it is pointless. If you have several article about apples and point them all to page A that is a different story.
-
not sure what you mean here, I have a canonical on every page, I program my sites to dynamicly to do, the reason i do so, is if someone scraps a page, it will have my address in the canonical tag.
I dont know what you mean by not relative to the tag. it just a href, are we talking about the same thing?
rel="canonical" href=http://mydomain.com/>
-
Having canonical tags on pages that don't have any duplicate content is pointless, as it may actually stop you for ranking on keywords specific to pages not relative to the tag.
Please, may you present me a document that assess what are you saying? because it is the first time I hear this thing.
#curious
-
The disadvantage to keeping a canonical tag on a page which does not require it would be, as a rule, you want to present your web page with the least amount of code possible. Unnecessary code causes extra confusion and adds to the processing time of web pages.
I use the canonical tag on all pages, but not everyone agrees. If you would like further support, SEOmoz uses the tag on all pages as well. If you use any CMS, ecommerce software, forum software or any system which generates pages dynamically then I would highly recommend a canonical tag on every page. At times a system will generate pages which you might not be aware of, but a crawler will find.
Sometimes a page will offer a print version, the ability to sort on ascending/descending, and numerous other changes. You might think you only have one version of your page but have many versions which you do not realize exist. A proper canonical tag ensures the correct version of your URL is always offered for indexing, and you avoid duplicate content issues. With that said, if you have a basic html/css/php site and you are 100% confident in your programmer, then it is not necessary.
EDIT: In your case, it seems the canonical tags are performing a necessary function. From your home page I clicked on your featured item and I landed on the following URL:
http://www.nathosp.com/product/r1212_c
You have the identical page offered under another URL: http://www.nathosp.com/product/r1212_c/hotel_towels.
If you were to remove the canonical, you would have duplicate content issues on your site.
-
rel=canonical just passes all link juice from one page to the next, it tells bots to use the page specified in the tag to assess link value and page authority. Having canonical tags on pages that don't have any duplicate content is pointless, as it may actually stop you for ranking on keywords specific to pages not relative to the tag. I would look at it closely or ask the last SEO why they did this before removing them. But by the sounds of it, you dont really need them.
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
-
Whats the negative effect of incorrect canonical to first page in paginated set?
Hi, I have a new client that has pagination handled incorrectly on their website.... They have it setup as follows: example.com/article?story=cupcake-news&page=1 example.com/article?story=cupcake-news&page=2 example.com/article?story=cupcake-news&page=3
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | QubaSEO
etc etc rel=canonical from page 2 to page 1
rel=canonical from page 3 to page 1
etc etc i.e. they aren't using rel=prev, rel=next To get them to invest in the development time need to change this I need to explain to the client how what they have is negatively affecting things? Anyone? Thanks in advance!0 -
Landing pages, are my pages competing?
If I have identified a keyword which generates income and when searched in google my homepage comes up ranked second, should I still create a landing page based on that keyword or will it compete with my homepage and cause it to rank lower?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | The_Great_Projects0 -
Rel=prev/next and canonical tags on paginated pages?
Hi there, I'm using rel="prev" and rel="next" on paginated category pages. On 1st page I'm also setting a canonical tag, since that page happens to get hits to an URL with parameters. The site also uses mobile version of pages on a subdomain. Here's what markup the 1st desktop page has: Here's what markup the 2nd desktop page has: Here's what markup the 1st MOBILE page has: Here's what markup the 2nd MOBILE page has: Questions: 1. On desktop pages starting from page 2 to page X, if these pages get traffic to their versions with parameters, will I'll have duplicate issues or the canonical tag on 1st page makes me safe? 2. Should I use canonical tags on mobile pages starting from page 2 to page X? Are there any better solutions of avoiding duplicate content issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | poiseo1 -
Blog tags are creating excessive duplicate content...should we use rel canonicals or 301 redirects?
We are having an issue with our cilent's blog creating excessive duplicate content via blog tags. The duplicate webpages from tags offer absolutely no value (we can't even see the tag). Should we just 301 redirect the tagged page or use a rel canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Rel Canonical Link on the Canonical Page
Is there a problem with placing a rel=canonical link on the canonical page - in addition to the duplicate pages? For example, would that create create an endless loop where the canonical page keeps referring to itself? Two examples that are troubling me are: My home site is www.1099pro.com which is exactly the same as www.1099pro.com/index.asp (all updates to the home page are made by updating the index.asp page). I want www.1099pro.com/index.asp to have the rel=canonical link to point to my standard homepage www.1099pro.com but any update that I make on the index page is automatically incorporated into www.1099pro.com as well. I don't have access to my hosting web server and any updates I make have to be done to the specific landing pages/templates. I am also creating a new website that could possible have pages with duplicate content in the future. I would like to already include the rel=canonical link on the standard canonical page even though there is not duplicate content yet. Any help really would be appreciated. I've read a ton of articles on the subject but none really define whether or not it is ok to have the rel=canonical link on both the canonical page and the duplicate pages. The closest explanation was in a MOZ article that it was ok but the answer was fuzzy. -Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
What is the best practice to optimize page content with strong tags?
For example, if I have a sub page dedicated to the keyword "Houston Leather Furniture" is it best practice to bold ONLY the exact match keyword? Or should ONLY the words from the keyword (so 'Houston' 'Leather' and 'Furniture') Is there a rule to how many times it should be done before its over-optimization? I appreciate any information as I want to do the BEST possible practice when it comes to this topic. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
Hide H1 tags on pages. Don't chuckle-Need assistance.
I redesigned my companies website and I am first and foremost an SEO person so I know the importance of a well laid out website. Furthermore, I know realistically you should NEVER hide text whether it's with WH or BH intentions but here is my problem. For every page I have all the details taken care of except proper placement of H1 tags. My website is responsive designed VERY competitive industry I have to make sure it is properly developed both design wise and seo wise It's an INC 5000 company so NO BH intentions On phones and tablet devices I have the header images hidden and in the place of header images I have the information as in location, service,etc of whatever that page may be. This makes it look good on desktops and serves up information quickly to people using phones and tablets. My question is: Would it be bad to turn that text seen on tablets and phones into an h1 tag as it's hidden on desktops with CSS but available on mobile devices. My problem is making the h1 tag's work with the desktop versions visually as placement doesn't make since. Any opinions are appreciated. Thanks Ballanrk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ballanrk0 -
Should I use the main keyword in the title tag for the site on all category pages?
I am pretty excited about changing all my title tags (for the most important 7 pages) since I have seen my rankings jump up in the SERP just by adding the main keyword for my website in the title tag. To make it easier I will explain my business. Simply, I run an online jewelry shop, so basically the keywords I want to use is "Jewelry online" and for the main categories "Necklace", "Rings" and "Bracelets". What I am unsure about is whether to use all the keywords in the main pages title tag or should I just use the main keyword "Jewelry online". I don’t want to create competition between my own pages of course. Jewelry Online - Trendy Fashion Jewelry | Homepage Or Jewelry Online - Necklace, Rings, Bracelets | Homepage And the same goes for the main categories, should I include "jewelry online" or not, like: Bracelets - Fashion Jewelry Online | Homepage Or Bracelets - Trendy_ Bangles_ and Arm Cuffs | Homepage Any suggestions what is the best practice for the title tag on main page and the main categories? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ikomorin0