Rel=canonical Notice
-
In the Crawl Diagnostics report we see there 314 Rel Canonical notices. We use the Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin and noticed that the URL is the exact same as the Tag value. When looking into the issue more, I see that the rel canonical tag is pointing to the same page as itself. For example, on the www.domain.com/blog/ page, there is a link rel="canonical" href="/blog/".
- Is this an issue that needs to be fixed?
- How can it be fixed?
- Will this cause any potential ranking issues?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-
Ah, yes. Since the tag just "represents" the URL that should be used for the content, it doesn't produce an endless loop. Redirects (301 or 302) produce loops from time to time, but that is another issue. Good question to ask and good that you are looking at everything to make sure your site is healthy.
-
Thank you very much for your help. I just thought it was odd to have a rel canonical tag that pointed to itself. Seems like it would be an endless loop. Great to hear that this is not a concern and can be disregarded.
-
Hello!
It sounds like there are a few questions here.
First, let me clarify that the 314 Rel Canonical notices are just that - notices. They are there to let you know the canonical link elements are present and also the tag value or where they point to.
Second, in most cases, the tag values match the page URL. Canonical link elements are used to identify the URL search engines should use for the page no matter how the URL looks.
I don't think you have any issues that need to be fixed as long as you've confirmed the canonical link element tag values match the page you are reviewing. You shouldn't see any ranking issues.
Edit: Looks like Jesse chimed in as I was typing up a response. What he has said is correct, you should be fine :).
-
Nope, doesn't need to be fixed. There's nothing wrong with this practice, especially for a Wordpress site (imo).
The notices that moz tools are giving you are just that - to make you aware that those canonical tags exist. They aren't warnings or errors, just notices to draw your attention to canonicals in case you ever wanted to look into them or ensure they were correct.
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
-
Can someone kindly explain what 'Crawl Issue Found: No rel="canonical" Tags' means? Is this a critical error and how can it be rectified?
Can someone kindly explain what 'Crawl Issue Found: No rel="canonical" Tags' means? Is this a critical error and how can it be rectified?
Moz Pro | | JoshMcLean0 -
Canonical URLs all show trailing slash on main site pages - using Yoast SEO for Wordpress - how to correct
We are using Yoast for a number of our sites. We use naked domain as the canonical. I have noticed in the header tags that all our sites show the canonical URLs as having a trailing slash: Example: http;//foxspizzajc.com, when I look at the source code, it shows the canonical as http;//foxspizzajc.com/ Of course, it is much more likely that all sites that link to us will not use the trailing slash - so preferably we do not want that to be the canonical - among other reasons. Does this need to be fixed so the trailing slash is removed? I cannot see how to do this in Yoast SEO or in Permalinks structure for Wordpress. Sorry for my ignorance. Thanks for any help.
Moz Pro | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing1 -
Crawl Report Re-direct Notice?
Just trying to understand if this is bad or not. The crawl report has picked up that my website is redirecting (301) from http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com - under Crawl Notices (blue section). Is this the wrong way to do it as we wanted the www domain version? Is that why SEOMoz has flagged it ?
Moz Pro | | Ubique0 -
Update in Moz spider/tools?? Flagging duplicate content / ignoring canonical
Hi all, Has there been an update in the SEOmoz crawling software? We now have thousands of dupe content/page title warnings for paginated product page URLs that have correctly formatted canonicals. e.g. http://www.woolovers.com/british-wool/mens/tweed-green/wool-countryman-suede-patch-sweater.aspx ... has following pages with identical content that have been flagged: http://www.woolovers.com/british-wool/mens/olive-green/wool-countryman-suede-patch-sweater.aspx?p=true&rspage=4 http://www.woolovers.com/british-wool/mens/olive-green/wool-countryman-suede-patch-sweater.aspx?p=true&rspage=6 http://www.woolovers.com/british-wool/mens/olive-green/wool-countryman-suede-patch-sweater.aspx?p=true&rspage=4 ..plus 4 more URL's. But they all have canonical set. There's even a notice at the bottom of report that tells us there's a canonical set to http://www.woolovers.com/british-wool/mens/tweed-green/wool-countryman-suede-patch-sweater.aspx What gives, SEOmoz ?? Thanks Michael
Moz Pro | | LawrenceNeal0 -
Canonical URLs for Search Parameters
Hi Guys Our seomoz campaign report is returning a lot or Rel Canonical issues similar to this for each page. The non / version redirects to the / version but how do I get the ones with search parameters ie '?datefrom&nights' to redirect. http://www.lamangaclubresort.co.uk/accommodations/las-brisas-78
Moz Pro | | JohnTulley
http://www.lamangaclubresort.co.uk/accommodations/las-brisas-78/
http://www.lamangaclubresort.co.uk/accommodations/las-brisas-78/?datefrom&nights
http://www.lamangaclubresort.co.uk/accommodations/las-brisas-78/?datefrom=&nights= Any help would be welcome, thanks0 -
Is canonical link enough?
Hi SEOmozers! I have a question. SEOmoz analysis report me some duplicate that I thought I had fix. I can give a concrete example. This page: http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/events/dec2011training-boston/moreinfo is reported as having 6 duplicated URL in the tool. When I click on 6, SEOMOZ tells me "Our crawl bots are getting their joints greased to fetch you even better data. Sorry for the delay!" And on the page itself, I placed a canonical link to follow recommandation. rel="canonical" href="http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/events/apr2012training-boston" /> As a result I am curious why I would have this reported as duplicate by SEOmoz. Is this a bug? Thanks for feedback!
Moz Pro | | nuxeo0 -
Canonical tags and SEOmoz crawls
Hi there. Recently, we've made some changes to http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/ to implement canonical tags to some dynamically generated pages to stop duplicate content issues. Previously, these were blocked with robots.txt. In Webmaster Tools, everything looks great - pages crawled has shot up, and overall traffic and sales has seen a positive increase. However the SEOmoz crawl report is now showing a huge increase in duplicate content issues. What I'd like to know is whether SEOmoz registers a canonical tag as preventing a piece of duplicate content, or just adds to it the notices report. That is, if I have 10 pages of duplicate content all with correct canonical tags, will I still see 10 errors in the crawl, but also 10 notices showing a canonical has been found? Or, should it be 0 duplicate content errors, but 10 notices of canonicals? I know it's a small point, but it could potentially have a big difference. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | neooptic0 -
Rel-canonical tag confusion
I had our web development company implement the rel-canonical tag on all pages of our website to get rid of the duplicate content months ago. However, when I use the On Page optimizer tool (in previous version) it would tell me I'm not using the rel-canonical tag correctly on the page I was grading and when I untagged use rel-canonical tag in our CMS (which was pointing to the correct page) my grade would go to an A. Now with the new version it says I'm using it wrong either way, when I have the tag used in my CMS and everything else is good I have a B, but one I click to not use Rel-canonical tag I have a C. Both ways it shows up in On-page tool without a check in Apprpriate Use of Rel Canonical. I've attached pictures. In C version it says - Canonical URL "/info/solutions/" and "/info/solutions/" In B version: Canonical URL "/info/solutions/" What am I doing wrong and how do i fix this? Because ALL of my grades have dropped to Bs and Cs. Thanks! iklEHOjJLZE4966 [URL]]([URL=http://imgur.com/5BYcV][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5BYcV.jpg[/IMG][/URL]) 5BYcV
Moz Pro | | aircyclemegan0