Canonical tag for similar page with different theme.
-
Our commerce system allows products to be shared across multiple categories/sections of our site. E.G.
/boxes/blue-box.html
/circles/blue-box.html
This enables the product to show up in different areas of the site, but does not link to an evergreen URL. We are considering using the canonical tag to resolve this issue, but our question relates to the similarity of the pages.
Each section folder (e.g. /boxes/ and /circles/) has a different header, left navigation and footer. They are similar in layout and some content is the same, but a good portion is different in the header and nav. Each category nav basically deals with deeper links in it's own category.
The product title, image, description, etc. is all the same and makes up the bulk of the page. Is this a good candidate for the canonical tag or should we attempt to accommodate an evergreen URL?
-
One static URL that can be found by your users from within any of the categories that the product is in would probably be best. That way there is no chance of duplicate content issues if the search engines were to find both and not resolve the canonical tag.
Really, I think it could go either way. Whichever one is easiest to implement in your particular situation, unless there are a lot of inbound links to your products. If that is the case, changing the URLs would require 301 redirects from the old URLs.
-
The canonical would be the quickest to implement for us, but the evergreen URL wouldn't be a huge deal to implement either after we took a look at it. Is there an advantage to one versus the other?
-
SE's can tell(for the most part) what is your content what is your header and what is your nav and footer, when looking for duplicate content, tehy are not concerned about the nav footer and header, they are concerned with your content.
-
I would use canonical in this situation. That way you won't have to rework all your navigation to have a single url for each product and can keep your category structures intact.
This is a situation that many eCommerce platforms really don't handle well. For example, I know of one that claims to offer canonical for product pages, but it gives each version (boxes/product.html and circles/product.html) its own unique canonical tag rather than both referring to the same product.html page. Kind of misses the point.
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
-
Similar content, targeting different states
I have read many answers regarding not having duplicated pages target different states (cities). Here is the problem. We have same content that will serve different pages in some provinces in Canada that we can't change allot intentionally. We don't want these pages compete within the same province. What would be the best approach not to get penalized and keep SERP? Initially we though about hreflang, but we can't really do it on the provice/state attributes. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MSaffou20180 -
Adding a Canonical Tag to each page referencing itself?
Hey Mozers! I've noticed that on www.Zappos.com they have a Canonical tag on each page referencing it self. I have heard that this is a popular method but I dont see the point in canon tagging a page to its self. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rpaiva0 -
Is a different location in page title, h1 title, and meta description enough to avoid Duplicate Content concern?
I have a dynamic website which will have location-based internal pages that will have a <title>and <h1> title, and meta description tag that will include the subregion of a city. Each page also will have an 'info' section describing the generic product/service offered which will also include the name of the subregion. The 'specific product/service content will be dynamic but in some cases will be almost identical--ie subregion A may sometimes have the same specific content result as subregion B. Will the difference of just the location put in each of the above tags be enough for me to avoid a Duplicate Content concern?</p></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | couponguy0 -
Canonical and On-Page Report Card
Hello, One quick question about rel canonical. If i use SeoMoz amazing on-page optimization tool i get a grade B if i use www.mydomain.com and my keyword. I get a grade A if i use https://www.mydomain.com and same keyword. I get the grade B coz i don't get the check mark to "Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical" box. Should i use this rel canonical stuff if i am 301 redirecting www. version to https://www. version already. Regards, OÜInigo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | InigoOU0 -
Should I build & try to rank several pages for similar keywords?
I have a client who's domain already ranks #1 on Google for 'automotive advertising agency'. However we want several listing on the first page. Should I create a few more pages like www.domain.com/automotive-advertising-agency www.domain.com/advertising-agency www.domain.com/automotive-advertising I'm assuming I can get these pages to rank well, but I'm wondering if Google will penalize us for this. Is this a good or bad idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Branden_S0 -
Canonical tags required when redirecting?
Hello, My client bought a new domain and he wants it to be the main domain of his company. His current domain though has been online for 10 years and ranks pretty well on a few keywords. I feel it is necessary to redirect the old domain to the new one to take advantage of its ranking and avoid any broken links. The sites are exactly the same. Same sections and same content. Is it necessary to place canonical tags on one of the sites to avoid duplicate content/sites? Any thoughts? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eblan0 -
Why does SEOmoz bot see duplicate pages despite I am using the canonical tag?
Hello here, today SEOmoz bot found and marked as "duplicate content" the following pages on my website: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/PatrickCollectionFlPf.html?tab=mp3 http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/PatrickCollectionFlPf.html?tab=pdf And I am wondering why considering the fact I am using on both those pages a canonical tag pointing to the main product page below: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/PatrickCollectionFlPf.html Shouldn't SEOmoz bot follow the canonical directive and not report those two pages as duplicate? Thank you for any insights I am probably missing here!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Is this structure valid for a canonical tag?
Working on a site, and noticed their canonical tags follow the structure: //www.domain.com/article They cited their reason for this as http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt. Does anyone know if Google will recognize this as a valid canonical? Are there any issues with using this as a the canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0