Canonical tags
-
Hi there,
I have just noticed that SEOmoz picked up some duplicates links that I would like to resolve but not sure how.
For example, the "Finding work in the arts" article has two links:
- http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts
- http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Finding+work+in+the+arts&utm_campaign=Footer+Links
Both links can be found on this page http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/industry-news-views/article/what-employers-are-looking-for (see attachment).
Would automatically generated canonical tags by the CMS solve this issue?
-
Thanks for you reply Alan.
-
Yes, I would recommend having the field available so you can add it when needed, but not on every page automatically.
Also, all of Alan's advise is very good, as well as irving's. Hope it helps!
-Dan
-
No really, in robots you can block one of them, but that does not stop people from linking to both.
By far the best is not to have 2 urls
next is a 301,
then a canonical
and last would be to use robots.txt
-
Hi
I am having the same issue at the moment but mine is one page with a friendly url and the other has the CMS page id.
From looking into this I think a canonical tag is needed but I think you can do the robots.txt as well.
-
I can not tell you, as i dont use a cms.
but this is the format
-
Also go into google webmster tools and add the parameters to the parameter handling tool and set the instructions for how you want Google to deal with the specific parameters in your URLs
-
Hi Alan,
Yes, one page, 2 urls (to test which link placement generates more clicks).
How do I place the canonical tag in a CMS driven website? Should we ask the developer to automatically generate canonical tags for pages or perhaps an extra text field to be used when a canonical tags needs to be added?
-
you mean one page 2 urls. then put the tag in the one page, point to the one original url
-
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the reply and explanation.
There is only one entry in the CMS for the article in question (http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts).
The other longer URL (http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Finding+work+in+the+arts&utm_campaign=Footer+Links) just has google analytic tracking appended to it.
-
Hi Dan,
We are using Expression Engine CMS.
Would you then recommend asking the developer to make an extra field available to capture the canonical url to be used when needed?
-
3 things you could do, in order or preference
1. Correct urls to be the same
2. 301 1 to the other
3 canonical tag one to the other.
I want to make sure you understand how to make the canonical tags. you need to decided what url is tyhe original.(that would be the shorter of the 2) then the other page should have a canonical tag pointing to the original
-
Hi
You should definitely be using the canonical tag for that page. As far as site wide, I wouldn't recommend to just add it automatically on every page. What CMS are you using? There should be a way to control what pages it gets added to, you wouldn't want it applied when it shouldn't be.
-Dan
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
-
Can I safely delete unused tags??
Can I safely delete unused tags, ones with 0 posts connected to them? Thanks, Mike
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Google Search Console and User-declared canonical is actually Hreflang tag
Hey, We recently launched a US version of UK based ecommerce website on the us.example.com subdomain. Both websites are on Shopify so canonical tags are handled automatically and we have implemented Hreflang tags across both websites. Suddenly our rankings in the UK have dropped and after looking in search console for the UK site ive found that a lot of pages are now no longer indexed in Google because the User-declared canonical is the Hreflang tag for the US URL. Below is an example https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet - is the product page is the canonical tag rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet" hreflang="en-gb" /> - UK hreflang tag rel="alternate" href="https://us.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet" hreflang="en-us" /> - US Hreflang tag then in Google search console the user-defined canonical is https://us.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet but it should be https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet The UK website has been assigned to target the United Kingdom in Search Console and the US website has been assigned to target the United States. We also do not have access to robots.txt file unfortunately. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | PeterRubber0 -
Hreflang tags with link to redirect loop
Hi guys, I'm having a bit of an issue on a client site that I'm hoping someone can help me with. Basically, the client has two domains, one serving users in the Republic of Ireland (http://www.americanholidays.com), showing Euro prices, and the other serving users in Northern Ireland (http://www.americanholidays.com/gb_en/) showing £ prices. The issue I'm having is that the URL for the Northern Ireland page has a 302 on it and goes through another 2/3 301 redirects until it resolves as http://www.americanholidays.com, however it does then show the £ prices. You can see the redirect chain here: http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/?page=single&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanholidays.com%2Fgb_en%2F&useragent=1&typeProtocol=11 The homepage is using the Hreflang tag, and pointing search engines to serve the http://www.americanholidays.com/gb_en/ page to users using EN-GB as their language. The page is also using a self-referencing canonical, which I believe may negate the whole Hreflang tag anyway? My main question is - is the fact that the Hreflang for the gb_en page is pointing to a chain of redirects negatively affecting it? (I understand too many redirects are never good). Also, is the canonical negating the Hreflang? Any help/info would be great as I just can't get my head around it! Thanks guys Daniel
Technical SEO | | DanielKiely60 -
Is it a good idea to use the rel canonical tag to refer to the original source?
Sometimes we place our blog post also on a external site. In this case this post is duplicated. Via the post we link to the original source but is it also possible to use the rel canonical tag on the external site? For example: The original blogpost is published on http://www.original.com/post The same blogpost is published on http:///www.duplicate.com/post. In this case is it wise to put a rel canonical on http://www.duplicate.com/post like this: ? What do you think? Thanks for help! Robert
Technical SEO | | Searchresult0 -
Title and description tags
Hi everyone! What is the maximum length a title tag should be and what range should a seo description be for best practice?
Technical SEO | | PeterM220 -
Canonical tag in preferred and duplicate page
Hi, I have a super spiffy (not) CMS that tends to create some pages at the root level of the site (not where I want it) i.e. www.site.com/page.htm as well as the desired location i.e. www.site.com/category/keyword/page.htm . Now obviously a canonical tag inserted into the URL at the undesired location would be the best option, however the source code is exactly the same for both pages (can’t change this) i.e. if I put the canonical tag that reads www.site.com/category/keyword/page.htm"/> it will appear in the head section of both pages, the desired URL and the non desired URL. Will a canonical tag inserted into the head section of a the preferred URL directing the search engine spiders pretty much to itself cause more grieft than the solution it offers re duplicate content ? Marc
Technical SEO | | NRMA0 -
Effect of rel canonical on links
Has anyone done any experimentation on how Google treats links that are on a page that is being "rel canonical'd" to another page? For eg, example.com/b has a canonical pointing to example.com/a How does Google treat the internal links that are on page example.com/b?
Technical SEO | | Burgo0 -
How rel=canonical works with index, noindex ?
Hello all, I had always wondered how the index,noindex affects to the canonical. And also if the canonical post should be included in the sitemap or not. I posted this http://www.comparativadebancos.co... and with a rel=canonical to this that was published at the beginning of the month http://www.comparativadebancos.co... but then I have the first one in google http://www.google.com/search?aq=f... May be this is evident for you but, what is really doing the canonical? If I publish something with the canonical pointing to another page, will it still be indexed by google but with no penalty for duplicate content? Or the usual behaviour should have been to havent indexed the first post but just the second one? Should I also place a noindex in the first post in addition to the canonical? What am I missing here? thanks
Technical SEO | | antorome0