Does Bing support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers?

[imiJoe]

anyone know^

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, I'm honestly not 100% sure on the HTTP header version, but I'd bet they don't support it. It won't hurt to try it, though, and you'd at least cover Google - I think it's probably a good best practice for PDFs that have HTML equivalents.

[imiJoe]

Hey Peter,

I am attempting to add the HTTP Header for PDF Files.  I really feel that this can be a bonus for sites that do have duplicated PDF content, especially on large e-commerce based sites.

I figured that they(Bing) didnt support it, and it sounds like it is probably not considered in the form of an HTTP Header

I may have to consider conditional logic and/or create a dynamic robots.txt file to disallow these PDF files for all other search engines, while serving up canonical HTTP Headers for Google, assuming that Bing doesnt support it.

It would be good to try and test, I may just end up doing that

[Dr-Pete]

I don't believe that Bing supports the HTTP header version of rel="canonical". They do technically support the link attribute (their comment about it being a "hint" was from 2009) - Duane confirmed that last year (I asked him point blank). Although, honestly, experiences vary and many SEOs claim that their support is inconsistent even for the link attribute.

Honestly, when it comes to canonicalization, when in doubt, try it. The worst that can happen in most scenarios (implemented properly) is that it just doesn't work.

Out of curiosity, why are your trying to use the HTTP Header version. Is it a non-HTML file (like a PDF)?

[SanketPatel]

Hi Brandon

"No "Bing does not support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers, Bing isn’t supporting the canonical link element. Bing says canonical tags are hints and not directives, So 301 redirects are your best friend for redirecting, use rel=”nofollow” on useless pages, and use robots.txt to keep content you don’t want crawled out. When you have duplicate problems due to extra URLs parameters, use the URL Normalization feature.

[imiJoe]

I think you guys are confused.  There is a difference between the rel="canonical" HTTP header, and a rel="canonical" tag.

I understand their stance with regards to the tag, but wonder if they even consider the canonical in the form of an HTTP Header.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/supporting-relcanonical-http-headers.html

[eyepaq]

Does Bing support rel="canonical" HTTP Headers?

** No.

Bing posted: "This tag will be interpreted as a hint by Live Search, not as a command. We'll evaluate this in the context of all the other information we know about the website and try and make the best determination<a> of the canonical URL</a>. This will help us handle any potential implementation errors or abuse of this tag."

[RanjeetP]

Well Brandon, Bing has officially said that they see it as only a hint and determine in their senses as to what is right, but SEO folks do use the tag and I don't think anyone has yet had a problem. You can have a glimpse at the latest SEOmoz talk on this too.

Cheers,