Regarding Rel Canonical on PhoneTech.dk
-
Hi All you Seo Experts from seomoz
I have a question about one of my webshops where I have the same product listed in different categories where I on the duplicate pages use the Rel Caninical Tag on, that points to the main product url. I just have to verify with you guys that I did it correctly
Example on the shop. This is just an example
www.phonetech.dk/shop/product1.html - This is Main
Duplicates
www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3G/product1.html - Canonical Tag on this one pointing to the main.
www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3g/backcovers/product1.html - Canonical Tag on this one pointing to the main.
www.phonetech.dk/shop/iphone3gs/colorbackcovers/product1.html - Canonical Tag here also pointing to main
Hope you guys can help me that my use of Canonical Tag is correct.
Regards
Christian - Denmark
-
Are these pages identical, but just reached via different paths (based on category/sub-category navigation)? If so, the canonical tag is definitely a good choice here. Ideally, it's best not to create duplicate paths, as it can cause long-term problems, but in lieu of that, canonical is probably your best defense.
-
It was just an example, its now live url's
-
It's fine to not include the canonical on the main/target page. As @donford said, it's fine to have a self-reference canonical, but it's definitely not necessary.
-
Are these live pages, or did something page (I can't seem to access them). Looking at the URLs, it seems like these are slightly different products, so I'm not clear if the canonical tag is appropriate.
-
Rel canonical tags should be on the pages that they are dealing with.
In my example above a rel canonical tag would be fine all the pages
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L&Gender=FOn each of the pages the tag would be
href="http://www.awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14"/>
You would not put it on the page
awebsite.com/t-shirts/ or awebsite.com
Hope that clarifies it for you.
-
Ok but its ok if it not included on the main page?
-
It doesn't need to be, but given the way the tag works, it does not hurt if the page you're on, is the path of the rel canonical.
Since the tag deals with dynamic pages it is very normal for the root page to have the tag as well as the dynamic pages.
-
Ok, but the canonical tag shall not be on the main right?
-
Hi Christian that is basically what the REL canonical is for, typically it is used to deal with dynamic urls like
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L
awebsite.com/t-shirts/product_id=14?color=Red&Size=L&Gender=FI have seen some ecommerce shops that allow you to copy products from one category to another, if you do this, then yes REL canonical is how I would deal with this myself.
Hope it helps,
Don
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
-
Dynamic Canonical Tag for Search Results Filtering Page
Hi everyone, I run a website in the travel industry where most users land on a location page (e.g. domain.com/product/location, before performing a search by selecting dates and times. This then takes them to a pre filtered dynamic search results page with options for their selected location on a separate URL (e.g. /book/results). The /book/results page can only be accessed on our website by performing a search, and URL's with search parameters from this page have never been indexed in the past. We work with some large partners who use our booking engine who have recently started linking to these pre filtered search results pages. This is not being done on a large scale and at present we only have a couple of hundred of these search results pages indexed. I could easily add a noindex or self-referencing canonical tag to the /book/results page to remove them, however it’s been suggested that adding a dynamic canonical tag to our pre filtered results pages pointing to the location page (based on the location information in the query string) could be beneficial for the SEO of our location pages. This makes sense as the partner websites that link to our /book/results page are very high authority and any way that this could be passed to our location pages (which are our most important in terms of rankings) sounds good, however I have a couple of concerns. • Is using a dynamic canonical tag in this way considered spammy / manipulative? • Whilst all the content that appears on the pre filtered /book/results page is present on the static location page where the search initiates and which the canonical tag would point to, it is presented differently and there is a lot more content on the static location page that isn’t present on the /book/results page. Is this likely to see the canonical tag being ignored / link equity not being passed as hoped, and are there greater risks to this that I should be worried about? I can’t find many examples of other sites where this has been implemented but the closest would probably be booking.com. https://www.booking.com/searchresults.it.html?label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaFCIAQGYARS4ARfIAQzYAQHoAQH4AQuIAgGoAgO4ArajrpcGwAIB0gIkYmUxYjNlZWMtYWQzMi00NWJmLTk5NTItNzY1MzljZTVhOTk02AIG4AIB&sid=d4030ebf4f04bb7ddcb2b04d1bade521&dest_id=-2601889&dest_type=city& Canonical points to https://www.booking.com/city/gb/london.it.html In our scenario however there is a greater difference between the content on both pages (and booking.com have a load of search results pages indexed which is not what we’re looking for) Would be great to get any feedback on this before I rule it out. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | GAnalytics1 -
Despite canonical duplicate content in WMT
Hi, 2 weeks ago we've made big changes in title and meta descriptions. To solve the missing title and descriptions. Also set the right canonical. Now i see that in WMT despite the canonical it shows duplicates in meta descriptions and titles. i've setup the canonical like this:
Technical SEO | | Leonie-Kramer
1. url: www.domainname.com/category/listing-family/productname
2. url: www.domainname.com/category/listing-family/productname-more-info The canonical on both pages is like this: I'm aware of creating duplicate titles and descriptions, caused by the cms we use and also caused by wrong structure of category/products (we'll solve that nest year) that's why i wanted the canonical, but now it's not going any better, did i do something wrong with the canonical?0 -
Is this an ideal rel=canonical situation?
Hey Moz community, Thanks for taking time to answer my question. I'm working directly with a hospital that has several locations across the country. They've copied the same content over to each of their websites. Could I point the search engines back to a singular location (URL) using the rel=canonical tag? In addition, does the rel=canonical tag affect the search engine rankings of the URLs (about 13 of them) that use the rel=canonical tag? If I'm on track, is there an ideal URL (location) to decide has the original content? This is actually the first time I've ever needed to use rel=canonical (if applicable). Thanks so much. Cole
Technical SEO | | ColeLusby0 -
Canonical tag or 301
Hi, Our crawl report is showing duplicate content. some of the report I am clear about what to do but on others I am not. Some of the duplicate content arises with a 'theme=default' on the end of the URL. Is this version of a page necessary for people to see when they visit the site (like a theme=print page is) in which case I think we should use a canonical tag, or is it not necessary in which case we should use a 301? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
Canonical warnings
[1] My site development tool (XSP) has recently added the canonical reference as an auto-generated tag, so every page of my site now has it. Why is SEOmoz warning me that I have hundreds of pages of canonicals if it's supposed to be a GOOD thing? [2] Google is still seeing the pages without the canonical tag because that's how they were indexed. Will they eventually get purged from their index, or should I be proactive about that, and if so, how? Thanks for any input.
Technical SEO | | PatioLifeStyle0 -
Seo on a dk site
hi my client has asked if we can seo their dk site , my question is does all link building and article submission have to be in danish
Technical SEO | | Westernoriental0 -
Canonical tags and internal Google search
Quick question: I want some pages that will have canonical tags, to show up in internal results for a Google site search that's built into the site. I'm not finished with the site, but is it correct to assume that pages with canonical will NOT show up in internal site search results, when powered by Google?
Technical SEO | | EricPacifico0