Canonical URL Tag Usage
-
Hi there,
I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page?
Kind Regards
-
I will do Hannah, thanks again.
-
Hey,
Re the rel-canonical, Bing say they don't like that implementation, but Google are fine with it. My advice? Yep - do it
Thanks
Hannah
PS If you want to ask a new question it's best to start a new thread - more likely to get seen & answered
-
Hi Hannah,
Just one more question please.
If I had just one website, would you always advice in using a canonical tag for every webpage on that site?
So, http://www.example.com/product-page/ would have canonical tag
rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product-page/" />
-
Thanks Hannah for all your help, I will let you know how it goes.
Kind Regards
-
Yep - you need to place the tags on every page which is duplicated across both sites
-
AH! at the moment I only have one hreflang on each domain
.co.uk website has:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-IE" href="http://www.mywebsite.ie" />
and .ie website has:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="http://www.mywebsite.co.uk" />
Was I doing it wrong to start with?
-
Like the rel="alternate" tag you need to put the canonical tag on every page of your .ie site pointing to the relevant page on your .co.uk site. You should also put the canonical tag on the .co.uk site pointing to itself - e.g.:
So on http://yourdomain.co.uk/page-whatever you'd need:
http://yourdomain.ie/page-whatever; />
http://yourdomain.ie/page-whatever - you'd need:
-
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for your feedback.
This is very interesting indeed Hannah, so this means that the .ie version will fall away in SERPs?
Technical question: Do I put the canonical tag on the .ie website pointing to the .co.uk website?
rel="canonical" href="http://www.mywebsite.co.uk"/>
Do I put a canonical tag on the .co.uk website?
Appreciate your help.
-
Hi Gary,
I think on this occasion you ought to use both rel="alternate" and the canonical tag.
One of my colleagues had a conversation with a Googler which supports and explains this further:
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Yes, everything is correct in Google webmaster tools. I have a feeling even though this is correct in webmaster tools that Google is counting as duplicate.
-
What are Google Webmaster Tools telling you? Have you used it to tell Google your site is geotargeted?
-
Hi Highland,
Thanks for your reply.
Do you know what is happening with this then? as it has no PR anymore plus it's not in the index
-
In this case, no. Matt Cutts has stated that country TLDs that are duplicate are not generally seen as duplicate by Google.
-
Hi Stefan,
Yes, in Google webmaster tools that countries are set, however one of the keywords I was ranking well for has disappeared from the .co.uk results, when I paste the first paragraph of the .co.uk page in question into .co.uk, its the .ie website that appears, I have also put this on the .co.uk & .ie webpages in question:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-IE" href="mysite.ie" />
<link < span="">rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="mysite.co.uk" /></link <>
I put the above code about 10 days ago, but still not sorted the problem, I feel that I need to tell Google that the .co.uk website is the original, what do you think?
-
Hello Gary,
You can use the
hreflang="'en-IE" href="www.your-ie.site"> element
For more information see: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
You can also in Google webmaster tools set the country a specific domain is targeting.
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
-
URL Parameters
Hi Moz Community, I'm working on a website that has URL parameters. After crawling the site, I've implemented canonical tags to all these URLs to prevent them from getting indexed by Google. However, today I've found out that Google has indexed plenty of URL parameters.. 1-Some of these URLs has canonical tags yet they are still indexed and live. 2- Some can't be discovered through site crawling and they are result in 5xx server error. Is there anything else that I can do (other than adding canonical tags) + how can I discover URL parameters indexed but not visible through site crawling? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bbop330 -
Wordpress Tags error in MOZ
Hi, We are getting an enormous amount of missing meta description only on our tag archives. When we post we fill in a description and are using the Yoast plugin ( getting green lights). Now we are finding that we're missing descriptions in tags archives. What is the best thing to do? We're finding that the tags are creating a separate url for each tag that has missing description even though the post has a full description. 1. To block spiders from crawling tags? 2. To stop using tags? 3. What do you suggest? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WalterHalicki0 -
Syntax: 'canonical' vs "canonical" (Apostrophes or Quotes) does it matter?
I have been working on a site and through all the tools (Screaming Frog & Moz Bar) I've used it recognizes the canonical, but does Google? This is the only site I've worked on that has apostrophes. rel='canonical' href='https://www.example.com'/> It's apostrophes vs quotes. Could this error in syntax be causing the canonical not to be recognized? rel="canonical"href="https://www.example.com"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ccox10 -
We 410'ed URLs to decrease URLs submitted and increase crawl rate, but dynamically generated sub URLs from pagination are showing as 404s. Should we 410 these sub URLs?
Hi everyone! We recently 410'ed some URLs to decrease the URLs submitted and hopefully increase our crawl rate. We had some dynamically generated sub-URLs for pagination that are shown as 404s in google. These sub-URLs were canonical to the main URLs and not included in our sitemap. Ex: We assumed that if we 410'ed example.com/url, then the dynamically generated example.com/url/page1 would also 410, but instead it 404’ed. Does it make sense to go through and 410 these dynamically generated sub-URLs or is it not worth it? Thanks in advice for your help! Jeff
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeffchen0 -
Should the Title Tag and the H1 Tag not be the same or not anymore and can that be classed as over optimization?
Hi All, I am just evaluating my title tags, H1,H2's etc and wondered in light of the google algorithm changes over the last 12 months , we should look at more diversity as opposed to things possibly looking over optimized... Originally (18 months ago) my Title tags considered of 2/3 keyword phrases , then I reduced this to my keyword phrase | Brand Name but a majority of my H1's and H2's had the same keyword phrases. Historically this has served us very well and rankings for good but over the last 12 months, we were hit by panda, hummingbird etc...and which we are trying to recover from and from what I have read, the rules have changed with regards to good seo./ over optimized SEO. We have been writting unique content , making more of our links branded etc to sort things out from that perspective but on the page stuff is just as important so I would like to get this right. I am now thinking , that I may be getting penalized if my H1 and title's , H2 are the same ? and that they should be obviously related but different. H2's again , need to be related but not the same as either of the above. Is that how things should be these days ? from what I have read about this, most of the articles are not that recent so I don't what to do what is now redundant advice Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Are these URLs too Keyword-packed?
Hi guys, Here is the URL: http://www.consumerbase.com/mailing-lists/dog-stores-mailing-list.html The target keywords are "Dog stores mailing list" and "Dog stores mailing lists" Does having "mailing-list" and "mailing-lists" in my URL hurt me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Does URL format affect Keyword effectiveness for a URL?
I am looking at our site structure, and don't want to have to rebuild the way the site was linked together based on it's current folder structure so I am wondering what option would work better for our URL structure. I will uses car categories as an example of what I am talking about, but you can insert any category structure you like. For example I would like to have pages like this: www.example.com/ford-convertibles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SL_SEM
www.example.com/chevy-convertibles But instead due to the site structure I will need to have pages like this: www.example.com/ford/convertibles
www.example.com/chevy/convertibles But wonder if I shouldn't do the following to ensure the proper phrase is known for the page: www.example.com/ford/ford-convertibles
www.example.com/chevy/chevy-convertibles The "/ford/ford-convertibles" just seems odd to me as a human, but I haven't seen anything on how well a keyphrase in a URL split by /'s does and I know dashes for phrases are fine. This means I am inclined to go with the"/ford/ford-convertibles"style because it keeps the keyphrase separated by dashes even if it is a bit repetitive. There will be other pages too like "/ford/top-10-fords-ever" but I don't wonder about that since it isnt "ford/ford-xxxxx" Thoughts on whether /'s in a keyphrase are as good as dashes?0 -
Strategies in Renaming URLs
We're renaming all of our Product URLs (because we're changing eCommerce Platforms), and I'm trying to determine the best strategy to take. Currently, they are all based on product SKUs. For example, Bacon Dental Floss is: http://www.stupid.com/fun/BFLS.html Right now, I'm thinking of just using the Product name. For example, Bacon Dental Floss would become: http://www.stupid.com/fun/bacon-dental-floss.html Is this strategy the best for SEO? Any better ideas? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JustinStupid0