undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. On-Page Optimization
  4. Rel="canonical" on home page?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Rel="canonical" on home page?

On-Page Optimization
5
5
3.0k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • SamCUK
    SamCUK last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 2:10 PM

    I'm using wordpress and the all in one seo pack with the canonical option checked. As I understand it the rel="canonical" tag should be added to pages that are duplicate or similar to tell google that another page (one without the rel="canonical" tag) is the correct one as the url in the tag is pointing google towards it.

    Why then does the all in one seo pack add rel="canonical" to every page on my site including the home page? Isn't that confusing for google?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Dr-Pete
      Dr-Pete Staff last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:04 PM Feb 6, 2012, 5:04 PM

      There are mixed opinions on using it on every page, but I think it's very useful on the home-page, for exactly the reasons that @donford suggests. It's easy for the home-page to get a bunch of variants indexed, including tracking parameters.

      Originally, Google said that canonical wasn't proactive, but they've eased up on that. Worst case, they may just ignore it, but the All-In-One SEO approach on a blog isn't a bad bet. It's just so easy for dynamic sites to spin off duplicate URLs that it's better to be proactive.

      I've never seen a penalty or devaluation due to using canonical when it's not necessary. I think Bing implied that they may ignore it if they see it too often, but I've never even seen a concrete example of that happening. It's so commonplace now that you'd hear about it if sites were being penalized.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • donford
        donford last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:01 PM Feb 6, 2012, 2:24 PM

        It would also make sense if you're home page generates something like

        www. A Site.com
        www. A Site.com/
        www. A Site.com/index.php
        www. A Site.com/index.php/

        This prevents duplicate page content issues as those pages while the exact same, are different URL's. The canonical tag should point to a single page whichever one is the real url for your site.

        Hope that helps,

        Don

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • JarnoNijzing
          JarnoNijzing last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 2:27 PM Feb 6, 2012, 2:23 PM

          it is confusing indeed.. had the same problem but read a lot about in on internet and Woj Kwasi is absolutely right.

          It tells google, hey look, this is the original page with this original content.

          also: use it in combination with htaccess files and you should be able to fix every problem

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • wojkwasi
            wojkwasi last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 2:18 PM Feb 6, 2012, 2:18 PM

            It's just saying to Google that the page it's on is the originator of the content

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            1 out of 5
            • First post
              1/5
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • rigelcable

              Hreflang Errors 404 vs "Page Not Found"

              For a websites that differ between catalogs (PDPs) what hreflang error causes the least harm? Obviously the best solution is to only have hreflang for shared products, but this takes more work to implement. So when no identical product exists... 1. Hreflang points to 404 or 410 error. 2. Hreflang points to 200 status "Page Not Found" page. This obviously has the additional issue of needing to point back to 100+ urls. I want to avoid having Google decide to ignore all hreflang due to errors as many correct urls will exist. Any thoughts?

              On-Page Optimization | Aug 12, 2020, 8:18 PM | rigelcable
              0
            • chuck-layton

              NoIndex or Rel=Canonical Pagination

              Hello, I had a question about noindex and Rel=Canonical on category page pagination. On my site, the category page the meta="robots" has "Index,Follow" tags and the rel="canonical" is the main category page, but when a user sorts the page the meta="robots" changes to "NoIndex, Follow." My question is should the sorted page be name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW" /> since the  rel="canonical" is pointing to the main page?? Or does it matter that it is NoIndex?? Any thoughts on this topic would be awesome. Thanks. Main Category Page
              https://www.site.com/category/
              name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW" />
              rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com/category/"/> Name Sorted Page
              https://www.site.com/category/?dir=asc&order=name
              name="robots" content="NOINDEX, FOLLOW" />
              rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com/category/">

              On-Page Optimization | Aug 29, 2018, 10:16 PM | chuck-layton
              0
            • imjonny123

              Thoughts on adding "near me" to title tag for local SEO?

              I want to lean out my title tags and will most likely be doing an A/B test. They currently have the "Near Me" modifier in there, which I believe Google can distinguish local SEO without it. Thoughts?

              On-Page Optimization | Sep 26, 2023, 11:12 AM | imjonny123
              0
            • crichardson9

              Category page canonical tag

              I know this question has been asked a few times on here but I'm looking for very specific advice. Currently when you go to a category, say http://www.bronterose.co.uk/range.html, a canonical tag is added to the head of the page. There are plenty of "variant" pages which carry the same tag, for example: /range.html?p=2
              /range.html?p=3
              /range.html?dir=asc&order=price
              /range.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price Is it wise to push the "link juice" for each of these variant pages to the top level page? Or should each variant page have its own unique canonical tag? After reading many blog posts, guides and papers I'm truly confused! Any general guidance or recommendations would be much appreciated. Chris.

              On-Page Optimization | Aug 31, 2013, 12:29 AM | crichardson9
              1
            • stephanwb

              Canonical URL, cornerstone page and categories

              If I want to have a cornerstone "page", can I substitute an actual page with a category archive of posts "page" (that contains many posts containing the target key phrase)? This way, if I make blog posts about a certain topic/ key phrase (example "beach weddings") and add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts, am I right then to assume google will see the archive page as the cornerstone page (and thereby won't see the individual posts with the same key phrase as competing)?

              On-Page Optimization | Aug 10, 2013, 2:24 PM | stephanwb
              0
            • activitysuper

              Rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on?

              Very simple, Why would a website (and I have seen tons doing this) link the rel canonical tag back to the same page the tag is on? Example: somepage.htm has a canonical tag linking to somepage.htm I thought the idea of this tag was to tell google if 2 pages are similar, this page is the original, and it's this page which should be indexed and the page with the tag on should pass all PR to the original. Maybe im wrong and someone can help me out to understand this.

              On-Page Optimization | Jan 3, 2013, 6:31 PM | activitysuper
              0
            • DenverKelly

              Does page "depth" matter

              Would it have a negative effect on SEO to have a link from the home page to this page... http://www.website/com/page1deep/page2deep rather than to this page http://www.website/com/page1deep I'm hoping that made some sense. If not I'll try to clarify. Thanks, Mark

              On-Page Optimization | Jan 26, 2012, 3:18 PM | DenverKelly
              0
            • jmansd

              What does the "base href" meta tag do? For SEO and webdesign?

              I have encounter the "base href" on one of my sites.  The tag is on every page and always points to the home URL.

              On-Page Optimization | May 10, 2011, 3:49 PM | jmansd
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.