Canoical tags how do i use them
-
Hi i have this coming up on the report for my url www.in2town.co.uk but i am not sure how to use the canonical tag.
I am using joomla and would be grateful if anyone could please give me advice on how to use this.
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Moderate fix
<dl>
<dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt>
<dd>0</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page.</dd>
<dd>many thanks for your help
</dd></dl>
-
Thank you. will have a read now. Many thanks for your help
-
Dr. Pete goes into some detail about the canonical tag at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/which-page-is-canonical.
It's basically telling Google that "I can't fix this with a 301, but domain.com/page1, domain.com/page1/, and domain.com/page1.php are all really the exact same page even though it has three different URLs, and the canonical URL is the one that I want you to show as the real URL"
-
Hello,
It is generally used when you have two or more pages with very similar or the same content.
It basically tells the bots that you know th othr pag has similar content and it is bing don on purpose.
You use it in the link from the first similar page to the second simliar page, take a look here for a full explanation.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
Hope this helps, all the best
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
-
Anyone have experience with GrowTeam or the platform they use?
We are being pitched by GrowTeam to improve our keyword rankings. They tell us they work with an SEO Technology company that does A/B testing of title tags on an engine that mimics Google's algorithms. Is this possible? I am not familiar with any platform where someone could do A/B testing on meta titles.
Technical SEO | | MikeAA0 -
Meta HTML tag code
I have been instructed by Moz that I have some missing meta description tags; however, this is what comes up when I searched for more help on this site: "The proper coding for a meta HTML tag is These Meta descriptions can be nested anywhere in the element." Obviously the actual coding is missing... so can anyone tell me what the proper coding for a meta HTML tag is? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | marissaRT0 -
Correct Implementation Of Canonical Tags
Hopefully this is an easy one to answer. When canonical tags are added to web pages should there be a canonical tag on a page that canonicalizes(?) (new word!?) back to itself. i.e. four page all point back to page Z. On page Z there is a canonical tag that points to page Z? My feeling without any technical know how is that this is just creating an infinite loop i.e. go to this page for original content, (repeat) Or this could be completely correct! Don't want to go back to the developer and point out the error if I'm wrong!
Technical SEO | | ZaddleMarketing0 -
How to fix rel canonical tags?
Hello there, I am trying to fix the issues with my campaign and I am trying to fix Rel canonical issues. I tried to read a few blogs and other sources which talked about the Rel canonical but I am not able to understand why is Rel Canonical happening? I understand that http://elegancealways.com is not the same as http://elegancealways.com/about-us/ but then I cannot change the link as the link is correct. I read about 301 and 302 redirects. I do not understand that which link is correct then? The errors SEO MOZ is showing is what I am not able to understand as these links are correct. I need help here!! Thanks Vineeta qTc2a2H.png
Technical SEO | | vineeta0 -
Using Rel Nofollow on Duplicate Pages
Hi there, I have a rather large site that has duplicate content on many pages due to how it's being spidered by google. I was hoping I could set the internal link to this page as "nofollow." My question is that I have hundreds of other sites with backlinks to these duplicate content pages.. will this affect me negatively if I tell google not to index the duplicated pages?
Technical SEO | | trialminecraftserverfinder0 -
W3C html5 meta tags invalid?
Dear Mozers, we get errors when validating meta tags in html5. I know it's experimental and not all metas are valid, but how do you handle this? Leave the tags out? here are some examples: `…name="DC.title" content="my content...xyc.." /**>**` ``` `>` ``` `>` ``` `>` ``` `>` `>` I tried to find some information but couldn't. What would you do? Thanks a lot, Barbara
Technical SEO | | barbara-f0 -
Why does it take so long for my TITLE tag it show ??
Hi Guys, I am frustrated here! I have changed my title tag so that I get a much better CTR. But I changed it a week ago and it is still howing the old title tag in the SERPS. Can anyone please tell me how long Google can take to show the new title tag in the search results?? Can it take weeks?? Thanks guys Gareth
Technical SEO | | GAZ090 -
Using robots.txt to deal with duplicate content
I have 2 sites with duplicate content issues. One is a wordpress blog. The other is a store (Pinnacle Cart). I cannot edit the canonical tag on either site. In this case, should I use robots.txt to eliminate the duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | bhsiao0