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
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. Technical SEO
    4. Diagnosing Canonical Errors Is Screaming frog reliable?

    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.

    Diagnosing Canonical Errors Is Screaming frog reliable?

    Technical SEO
    3
    9
    2173
    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.
    • Nightwing
      Nightwing last edited by

      Morning from suny & warm wetherby UK 🙂

      On this page http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ screaming frog is citing a canonical error but I'm confused as this piece of code is in place:

      http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage" />

      So my question is please - "Does this page  http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ have a caninical error or is screaming frog useless?

      Other examples where screaming frog is picking up canonical errors include:
      http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/
      http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/

      Oh forgot to say the preffered version is http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage/

      Any insights welcvome 🙂

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Keszi
        Keszi @Nightwing last edited by

        Hey,

        Long time since the Question, I was just wondering if you worked it out or not.

        Gr.,

        Istvan

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Dr-Pete
          Dr-Pete Staff @Nightwing last edited by

          I think Screaming Frog is just warning you that the canonical version doesn't seem to match the display URL. They can't really tell (we have the same problem in SEOmoz tools) what the "right" canonical is - they can just warn of a mismatch.

          I'm a bit confused as to the purpose of the dual URLs here. The best canonical implementation is to use one URL. The canonical tag can act as a band-aid, but  consistency is still the best defense. Having multiple paths to the same page is rarely beneficial.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Nightwing
            Nightwing @Nightwing last edited by

            Having spoke to oiur internal helpdesk (Who I trust & do know what theyre talking about) theyve taken a look at:

            http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/footer-links/left/right-to-manage/

            http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/

            http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/

            http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/

            and I'm afraid they have a different perspective which is they see no canonical problem 😞 Hey ho think I'll just set my head on fire then maybe things will be more clearer 😉

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Nightwing
              Nightwing @Nightwing last edited by

              Hi Istvan - your advice is good but ive just discovered its not been implemented! Time to kick some ass, I'll update you 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Keszi
                Keszi @Nightwing last edited by

                Hey,

                Any news on how it went? I am curious if that was the problem or not. 🙂

                Gr.,

                Istvan

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Keszi
                  Keszi @Nightwing last edited by

                  Hey,

                  Maybe this helps you a littlebit: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes

                  Dr. Pete's article explains well how the status codes work.

                  Gr.,

                  Istvan

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                  • Nightwing
                    Nightwing @Keszi last edited by

                    Wow great anser, I'm on to this now & will updat you with how things went 🙂

                    Keszi Nightwing Dr-Pete 6 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Keszi
                      Keszi last edited by

                      Hey there!

                      I think I have found what your problem is with you canonical link 🙂

                      In your code you have:

                      And probably you are somewhere forcing the URls to have a / at the end.

                      So basically you are confusing browsers and search engine bots, because they now cannot tell which is the real version:

                      SE enters the page. Then it sees that the right version should be the one WITHOUT a "/" at the end, then that pages has a 301 redirect to the version which HAS a "/" at the end of the URL (but that has a canonical which points out that the preffered version should be ). So it is a non-ending circle.

                      So if you add a / to the end of your URl, your problem should be solved.

                      Final thought: Screaming Frog is working well.

                      I hope this was a solution.

                      Cheers,

                      Istvan

                      Nightwing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        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

                      • Eric_S

                        Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical

                        Hi all, A number of our pages have dropped out of search rankings. It seems they are being marked as "Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical" However, the page Google is choosing as the canonical is totally different - different headings, titles, metadata, content on the page. We are completely mystified as to why this is happening. If anyone can shed any light, it would be hugely appreciated! Example URL is this one:
                        https://www.vouchedfor.co.uk/IFA-financial-advisor-mortgage/london Which Google seems to think is a duplicate of this: https://www.vouchedfor.co.uk/solicitor/london

                        Technical SEO | | Eric_S
                        0
                      • Extima-Christian

                        Sitemap error in Webmaster tools - 409 error (conflict)

                        Hey guys, I'm getting this weird error when I submit my sitemap to Google. It says I'm getting a 409 error in my post-sitemap.xml file (https://cleargear.com/post-sitemap.xml). But when I check it, it looks totally fine. I am using YoastSEO to generate the sitemap.xml file. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a big deal? If so, Does anyone know how to fix? Thanks EwTswL4

                        Technical SEO | | Extima-Christian
                        0
                      • Flock.Media

                        Canonical issues using Screaming Frog and other tools?

                        In the Directives tab within Screaming Frog, can anyone tell me what the difference between "canonicalised", "canonical", and "no canonical" means? They're found in the filter box. I see the data but am not sure how to interpret them. Which one of these would I check to find canonical issues within a website? Are there any other easy ways to identify canonical issues?

                        Technical SEO | | Flock.Media
                        0
                      • jeeyer

                        Set Canonical for Paginated Content

                        Hi Guys, This is a follow up on this thread: http://moz.com/community/q/dynamic-url-parameters-woocommerce-create-404-errors# I would like to know how I can set a canonical link in Wordpress/Woocommerce which points to "View All" on category pages on our webshop.
                        The categories on my website can be viewed as 24/48 or All products but because the quanity constantly changes viewing 24 or 48 products isn't always possible. To point Google in the right direction I want to let them know that "View All" is the best way to go.
                        I've read that Google's crawler tries to do this automatically but not sure if this is the case on on my website. Here is some more info on the issue: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en
                        Thanks for the help! Joost

                        Technical SEO | | jeeyer
                        0
                      • SeaCandyTackle

                        Rel=canonical Weebly

                        My problem is with my website as it says I have duplicate page titles and contents because of a /index.html. It says the duplicate content is due to the fact that my homepage on my website is www.seacandytackle.com but it is also www.seacandytackle.com/index.html because I use weebly. How can I use the tag to fix this? It won't let me do a 301 redirect because it is a home page. How can I fix this? What code would I have to use and which url? Also it says that I have duplicate page content between http://www.seacandytackle.com/index.html and http://www.seacandytackle.comhttp://www.seacandytackle.com but I don't recall having any page that looks like http://www.seacandytackle.com http://www.seacandytackle.com from weebly. How can I fix this issue as well? Thank you for any help. Step by step implementation would be particularly helpful in using the rel= tags to fix these duplicate issues.

                        Technical SEO | | SeaCandyTackle
                        0
                      • seoessentials

                        Screaming Frog Content Showing charset=UTF-8

                        I am running a site through Screaming Frog and many of the pages under "Content" are reading text/html; charset=UTF-8. Does this harm ones SEO and what does this really mean? I'm running his site along with this competitors and the competitors seems very clean with content pages reading text/html. What does one do to change this if it is a negative thing? Thank you

                        Technical SEO | | seoessentials
                        0
                      • DonnaDuncan

                        Exclude status codes in Screaming Frog

                        I have a very large ecommerce site I'm trying to spider using screaming frog. Problem is I keep hanging even though I have turned off the high memory safeguard under configuration. The site has approximately 190,000 pages according to the results of a Google site: command. The site architecture is almost completely flat. Limiting the search by depth is a possiblity, but it will take quite a bit of manual labor as there are literally hundreds of directories one level below the root. There are many, many duplicate pages. I've been able to exclude some of them from being crawled using the exclude configuration parameters. There are thousands of redirects. I haven't been able to exclude those from the spider b/c they don't have a distinguishing character string in their URLs. Does anyone know how to exclude files using status codes? I know that would help. If it helps, the site is kodylighting.com. Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

                        Technical SEO | | DonnaDuncan
                        0
                      • Firestarter-SEO

                        How to set up a rel canonical in big commmerce?

                        I have no clue how to set this up in the Bigcommerce store platform

                        Technical SEO | | Firestarter-SEO
                        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.