Rel canonical Issue
-
I have a huge rel canonical issue showing up on my website, and I'm not sure that I fully understand why. To my knowledge, this is something that comes about when alternate urls are used to link to the same page. However, this is not a technique that I've used with my website, yet it's still raising a flag on just about every page.
Can anyone enlighten me on what's causing this?
Thanks
-
We tag near-duplicates in the system, so I think you've got a combination of factors:
(1) There's only one post on some of the tag pages.
(2) The posts don't have a lot of text, so the "snippet" duplicates about 1/3 to 1/2 of it.
(3) The navigation/code is pretty heavy, compared to content.
Once those tag pages have more posts/snippets, I don't think you'll see problems. Be careful, as you grow, with how many tags you create. Tag searches can start to look a bit thin, and you may want to exclude them (or some of them) from the search index down the road. For now, I think you're probably ok. Once those tags have 3-4 snippets on them, the pages should look a lot better.
-
I'm still learning, so it's a little hard for me to explain. But basically, I have 95 duplicate content warnings. What's coming up is the tag linked to the post and the actual post itself. Which in itself seems like a problem, plus I thought maybe that's related to the rel can. notices.
-
You mean because there's only one entry in that tag result? It's not necessarily a problem, but if you spin out a lot of those tag pages, that content can look a little thin. It's a balancing act. As the site grows, you may want to consider whether or not to let every tag be indexed. Usually, it's only a problem on large sites, though.
-
Hi,
Thanks everyone for the great insight. I think I may have found another problem that's related to this though. I also have a lot of duplicate content warnings, which is also odd. Here's what I found.
Seems like I have tag urls linking to content - for instance:
is this considered being linked to the actual post/perma?
autodebut.com/2012/techart-2012-porsche-911-revealed-at-geneva-motor-show/#more-6382
Could that be causing the problem?
-
donford is correct, I believe the notive is to let you know where the canonicals are as they can be dangerous if you put them in wrong.
-
Hi Dorian,
To my knowledge the Rel Warning from SeoMoz doesn't mean something is wrong, rather that the tag was detected.
I believe this is because if you can, you should properly redirect 301 to the correct URL instead of saying hey don't index this as what you see but what I say (which is what rel canonical does). However, there are cases with dynamic URL's this isn't always avoidable so the tag does server a purpose.
-
Having a quick look on your website, the use of canonical tag looks fine. What exactly is the problem you are having ?
-
SEOmoz pro just finished crawling my website and it's coming up with 250 rel canonical warnings.
Here's one example:
"
<dt>Description</dt>
<dt>Using rel=canonical suggests to search engines which URL should be seen as canonical."</dt>
<dt>That's all it's saying. I also have metarobots set to noodp,noydir - but I'm sure that doesn't make any difference with this.</dt>
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
-
Mass changes of titles and descriptions can cause issues?
I have a big website with all the titles and desc NOT optimized...if i change all of them in one day this can cause seo issues on my site? It's okay to do that?
On-Page Optimization | | markovald0 -
Robot.txt file issue on wordpress site.
I m facing the issue with robot.txt file on my blog. Two weeks ago i done some development work on my blog. I just added few pages in robot file. Now my complete site seems to be blocked. I have checked and update the file and still having issue. The search result shows that "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more." Any suggestion to over come with this issue
On-Page Optimization | | Mustansar0 -
How do I fix duplicate page issue on Shopify with duplicate products because of collections.
I'm working with a new client with a site built on Shopify. Most of their products appear in four collections. This is creating a duplicate content challenge for us. Can anyone suggest specific code to add to resolve this problem. I'm also interested in other ideas solutions, such as "don't use collections" if that's the best approach. I appreciate your insights. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | quiltedkoala0 -
Will canonical tag on non-copy content harm my site?
Days ago I added rel=canonical tags on my site. For the post pages, I add canonical tag on both post page (www.exmample.com/post.html) and comment page (www.exmample.com/post-sms.html), all the canonical tags are pointing to post page, but in fact there are only comments on the comment page. For product pages, I add the canonical tags on both product info page, download page, and order page, all of them are pointing to the info page, while in fact they are displaying different content. I no-indexed the comment page, download page, and order page for a long time. After I added the canonical tags, the traffics dropped (not hugely but slowly and steadily). Are my actions harming my site? Is this a normal flux after adding codes to the entire site, or it's the bad outcome for wrong SEO actions? PS: I can't change the site structure, so it's not possible to combine post and comment pages into one, so do the product pages. Thank you guys
On-Page Optimization | | JonnyGreenwood0 -
Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Hello, in on page report card , for a kyeword: armadi portafucili blindati URL: http://www.bighunter.net/shop/searchresult.seam?codiceSettoreSel=CACCIA&codiceCategoriaSel=Armadi Blindati&codiceSottoCategoriaSel=Linea Legno DeLuxe&codiceMarcaSel=SILMEC i have a Critical Factor that don't undestand. It 's not ok "appropiate Use of Rel Canoncal, but in my page i have <link href="http://www.bighunter.net/shop/searchresult.seam?codiceSettoreSel=CACCIA&codiceCategoriaSel=Armadi Blindati&codiceSottoCategoriaSel=Linea Legno DeLuxe&codiceMarcaSel=SILMEC" rel="canonical"> and the link is the same of the url . I don't undestand where is the problem . Who can help me? Best Regards Luca
On-Page Optimization | | lbecarelli0 -
Will a "no follow" "no index" meta tag resolve duplicate content issue?
I have a duplicate content issue. If the page has already been indexed will a no follow no index tag resolve the issue or do I also need a rel canonical statement?
On-Page Optimization | | McKeeMarketing0 -
Formatting issues WordPress 3.1.2
The and _formatting tags format the text in the WYSIWYG editor but not in the browser (I've tried in Firefox and Internet Explorer. It doesn't help if I add non depreciate Html _and Is this a theme Issue? Is there a way to fix it? Does anyone know why and are added instead of and ?__
On-Page Optimization | | catherine-2793880 -
Do we need to use the canonical tag on non-indexed pages?
Hi there I have been working in / learning SEO for just over a year, coming from a non dev background, so there are still plenty of the finer points on-page points I am working on. Slowly building up confidence and knowledge with the great SEOMoz as a reference! We are working on this site http://www.preciseuk.co.uk (we are still tweaking the tags and content by the way- not finished yet!) Because a lot of the information is within accordians, a page is generated for each tab of the accordian expanded, for example: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php is the main page but then you also have: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=0 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=1 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=2 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=3 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=4 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=5 All of which are in the same file. According to the crawl test, these pages are not indexed. Because it is all in one file, should we add the canonical tag to it, so that this is replicated in all the tab pages that are generated? eg. Thanks in advance for your help! Liz OneResult
On-Page Optimization | | oneresult
liz@oneresult.co.uk2