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
      • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Canonical URLs and Sitemaps

    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.

    Canonical URLs and Sitemaps

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    7
    14554
    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.
    • 379seo
      379seo last edited by

      We are using canonical link tags for product pages in a scenario where the URLs on the site contain category names, and the canonical URL points to a URL which does not contain the category names.  So, the product page on the site is like www.example.com/clothes/skirts/skater-skirt-12345, and also like www.example.com/sale/clearance/skater-skirt-12345 in another category.  And on both of these pages, the canonical link tag references a 3rd URL like www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345.  This 3rd URL, used in the canonical link tag is a valid page, and displays the same content as the other two versions, but there are no actual links to this generic version anywhere on the site (nor external).

      Questions:

      1. Does the generic URL referenced in the canonical link also need to be included as on-page links somewhere in the crawled navigation of the site, or is it okay to be just a valid URL not linked anywhere except for the canonical tags?

      2. In our sitemap, is it okay to reference the non-canonical URLs, or does the sitemap have to reference only the canonical URL?  In our case, the sitemap points to yet a 3rd variation of the URL, like www.example.com/product.jsp?productID=12345.  This page retrieves the same content as the others, and includes a canonical link tag back to www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345.  Is this a valid approach, or should we revise the sitemap to point to either the category-specific links or the canonical links?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • 379seo
        379seo @Dr-Pete last edited by

        Thanks.  And since we've now implemented the aforementioned changes, I can give some findings back.

        What we did: We changed our sitemap to point to the same canonical URLs as are referenced in the tags on our product pages (only one entry in sitemap per product).

        What we didn't do: We didn't change the product pages themselves.  They still have a canonical URL link reference, pointing to a URL with no category paths, which does not naturally occur in the navigation of the site (on the site, product pages all have category paths in the URL).

        Findings: After submitting the new sitemap, the stats in Google Webmasters Tools indicate that almost all (> 96%) of our product pages are indexed.  We believe that the pages were already indexed (for the most part) and now the sitemap is useful for metrics.  From the timing, it's unlikely that the sitemap itself caused our index stats to get significantly better in just 1 day.  Possible, but unlikely.  In either case, since our product page URLs still reference canonical links which don't exist in the site's navigation, the evidence suggests that the canonical link itself is enough, and an actual navigation path to the canonical version of the page is not needed.  That's just empirical evidence, we have no inside info on Google's methods, but this is what we believe now after monitoring.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Dr-Pete
          Dr-Pete Staff @379seo last edited by

          With the canonical tag in place, I'm guessing that extra link would basically be ignored. It's probably harmless, but I'm not sure it will do anything. You could create an HTML "sitemap" (or even an XML sitemap) with the canonical URLs. It's not my first choice, but it at least would give Google an extra push.

          379seo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 379seo
            379seo last edited by

            We're in process of updating our canonical tagging and our sitemap, based on the feedback here.  I have a question for the group though.  Unfortunately we can't follow Andy Smith's suggestion of creating a "By Brand" navigation section on the site, since this web site is all private label (they sell all products under their own brand name).

            One possible solution is to create a user-accessible site map page, with an "all products" paginated section, where all these product page URLs would be the canonical version.

            But another possible solution, easier to implement, would be to have a user accessible link on each product page to the canonical version of itself.  That is, when the user is on www.example.com/clothes/skirts/skater-skirt-12345, there would be a link to www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345, which would also be the URL specified in the canonical tag.

            This seems redundant, but our results so far have borne out that the canonical tag pointing to a URL which doesn't really exist anywhere in the navigation doesn't seem to be having the desired effect.  So, the thought is that a combination of the canonical tag, plus a "real" link to that same URL referenced in the canonical tag would better inform the search engine robots.  But our hesitation is whether it should work for this link to be on the product page itself (e.g. the non-canonical version).

            Any thoughts or feedback on approach?

            Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • 379seo
              379seo last edited by

              Thanks for the responses.  I've been monitoring for the past couple of weeks with the current sitemap and canonical structure, and so far the data seems consistent with the replies to this thread.  In GWT, the sitemap stats show less than 1% of the URLs submitted are indexed so far.  We have an action plan now to update the canonical structure and the sitemap to point to URLs which will be naturally crawled on the site as well.

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

                There's no "have to" in most of these situations, but it boils down to this - the more canonical your canonical URL actually is, the better chance you have of Google honoring it. In other words, if you set a canonical tag but then never use that in internal links or your XML sitemap, odds are pretty good that Google may ignore the tag in some cases. You're basically saying "Hey, this URL is canonical! No, this one is! No, this one!" - it's a mixed message, and they're going to try to interpret it algorithmically.

                I definitely think pointing to yet another version in the XML sitemap is a problem. Ideally, it would be great to unify your URLs, but if that's not possible, getting the canonical version in the sitemap would be a big help (and introducing yet another variant isn't good, so you'd kill two birds with one stone). As Andy said, if you could create some kind of internal link to the canonical version, even if it's not the main link, that could also help. I only hesitate on that one, because you don't want to end up with a weird, artificial linking structure (just creating links to have links).

                Please note, this isn't necessarily a disaster the way you have it. Google could honor the tags properly and generally rank your site correctly. In my experience, though, it's a recipe for long-term problems, and it's worth fixing.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Creode
                  Creode last edited by

                  The purpose of the canonical tag is to tell Google which page to index first. So, on that note, I usually use the canonical tag on the strongest page in terms of pagerank, as this shows which page is linked to the best.

                  I'm also guessing you're using a framwork/platform like Magento, this can make linking quite difficult. I often suggest creating Brand pages, and link to the product page, the "3rd URL", from there. Brand pages also great for SEO, as most people search for brands first. Great place to get some fat head keywords in.

                  Also, make sure you put in the http:// as well, I think it is good practice to put in the full URL.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 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

                  • wonkydogadmin

                    Pending Sitemaps

                    Hi, all Wondering if someone could give me a pointer or two, please. I cannot seem to get Google or Bing to crawl my sitemap. If I submit the sitemap in WMT and test it I get a report saying 44,322urls found. However, if I then submit that same sitemap it either says Pending (in old WMT) or Couldn't fetch in the new version. This couldn't fetch is very puzzling as it had no issue fetching the map to test it. My other domains on the same server are fine, the problem is limited to this one site. I have tried several pages on the site using the Fetch as Google tool and they load without issue, however, try as I may, it will not fetch my sitemap. The sitemapindex.xml file won't even submit. I can confirm my sitemaps, although large, work fine, please see the following as an example (minus the spaces, of course, didn't want to submit and make it look like I was just trying to get a link) https:// digitalcatwalk .co.uk/sitemap.xml https:// digitalcatwalk .co.uk/sitemapindex.xml I would welcome any feedback anyone could offer on this, please. It's driving me mad trying to work out what is up. Many thanks, Jeff

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wonkydogadmin
                    0
                  • thekiller99

                    Sitemap: unique sitemap or different sitemaps by Country

                    Hi guys, i have a question about sitemaps. We are doing an international site, e.x. www.offers.com for landing page and www.offers.com/br for brazil, www.offers.com/it for italy, etc... i don't if we should do an unique sitemap for all countries or separate sitemaps by country, e.x.: unique sitemap: www.offers.com/sitemap.xml - including all sitemaps www.offers.com/br/sitemap.xml - sitemap for brazil market only. Thank you

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thekiller99
                    0
                  • ang

                    URL structure change and xml sitemap

                    At the end of April we changed the url structure of most of our pages and 301 redirected the old pages to the new ones. The xml sitemaps were also updated at that point to reflect the new url structure. Since then Google has not indexed the new urls from our xml sitemaps and I am unsure of why. We are at 4 weeks since the change, so I would have thought they would have indexed the pages by now. Any ideas on what I should check to make sure pages are indexed?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ang
                    0
                  • nicole.healthline

                    How important are sitemap errors?

                    If there aren't any crawling / indexing issues with your site, how important do thing sitemap errors are? Do you work to always fix all errors? I know here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/bings-duane-forrester-on-webmaster-tools-metrics-and-sitemap-quality-thresholds Duane Forrester mentions that sites with many 302's 301's will be punished--does any one know Googe's take on this?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
                    0
                  • dellamoda

                    Overly-Dynamic URL

                    Hi, We have over 5000 pages showing under Overly-Dynamic URL error Our ecommerce site uses Ajax and we have several different filters like, Size, Color, Brand and we therefor have many different urls like, http://www.dellamoda.com/Designer-Pumps.html?sort=price&sort_direction=1&use_selected_filter=Y http://www.dellamoda.com/Designer-Accessories.html?sort=title&use_selected_filter=Y&view=all http://www.dellamoda.com/designer-handbags.html?use_selected_filter=Y&option=manufacturer%3A&page3 Could we use the robots.txt file to disallow these from showing as duplicate content? and do we need to put the whole url in there? like: Disallow: /*?sort=price&sort_direction=1&use_selected_filter=Y if not how far into the url should be disallowed? So far we have added the following to our robots,txt Disallow: /?sort=title Disallow: /?use_selected_filter=Y Disallow: /?sort=price Disallow: /?clearall=Y Just not sure if they are correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,Kami

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dellamoda
                    2
                  • seoppc2012

                    Does Google index url with hashtags?

                    We are setting up some Jquery tabs in a page that will produce the same url with hashtags. For example: index.php#aboutus, index.php#ourguarantee, etc. We don't want that content to be crawled as we'd like to prevent duplicate content. Does Google normally crawl such urls or does it just ignore them? Thanks in advance.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoppc2012
                    0
                  • knowyourbank

                    URL Structure for Directory Site

                    We have a directory that we're building and we're not sure if we should try to make each page an extension of the root domain or utilize sub-directories as users narrow down their selection. What is the best practice here for maximizing your SERP authority? Choice #1 - Hyphenated Architecture (no sub-folders): State Page /state/ City Page /city-state/ Business Page /business-city-state/
                    4) Location Page  /locationname-city-state/ or.... Choice #2 - Using sub-folders on drill down: State Page /state/ City Page /state/city Business Page /state/city/business/
                    4) Location Page  /locationname-city-state/ Again, just to clarify, I need help in determining what the best methodology is for achieving the greatest SEO benefits. Just by looking it would seem that choice #1 would work better because the URL's are very clear and SEF. But, at the same time it may be less intuitive for search. I'm not sure. What do you think?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knowyourbank
                    0
                  • salvyy

                    Exact keyword URL or not?

                    Hi all, I have a quick question about the proper use of permalinks. Let's say that I have a website about sports and I want to create an internal page dedicated to shoes. I know that the keyword "shoe" has 15.000 monthly visits, while the keyword "shoes" has 1.000 monthly visits. How do I have to name the internal page? http://www.example.com/shoe or http://www.example.com/shoes (with a final 's')? I would think that by naming the URL http://www.example.com/shoes, the search engine would consider that page for the keywords "shoe" and "shoes", but I am not sure about it. Should I create a URL that only focuses on one specific keyword ("shoe", in this example) or a URL that may encompass more than one keyword ("shoe" and "shoes")? I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time and help. All best, Sal

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy
                    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

                  Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                  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.