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. Technical SEO
    4. Adding Rel Canonical to multiple pages

    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.

    Adding Rel Canonical to multiple pages

    Technical SEO
    3
    9
    1720
    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.
    • jdossetti
      jdossetti last edited by

      Hi,

      Our CMS generates a lot of duplicate content, (Different versions of every page for 3 different font sizes). There are many other reasons why we should drop this current CMS and go with something else, and we are in the process of doing that. But for now, does anyone know how would I do the following:

      I've created a spreadsheet that contains the following:

      Column 1: rel="canonical" tag for URL

      Column 2: Duplicate Content URL # 1

      Column 3: Duplicate Content URL # 2

      Column 4: Duplicate Content URL # 3

      I want to add the tag from column 1 into the head of every page from column 2,3, and 4.

      What would be a fast way to do this considering that I have around 1800 rows.

      Check the screenshot of the builtwith.com result to see more information about the website if that helps.

      Farris

      bxySL

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

        Yeah, wish I could give you a simpler answer, but I'm afraid it might end up being a little tricky. Hit the biggest problems first, and at least you can manage time/money a bit. The one bright side is that the rules should be no harder to code in ColdFusion than anything else (PHP, ASP, whatever). It's just the core logic that's tricky.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • jdossetti
          jdossetti @jdossetti last edited by

          That's what I thought. I need to find someone in the company who knows cold fusion and go through it.

          Thanks for your help though. I appreciate it.

          Farris

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

            Unfortunately, the rules may differ from page to page and will be entirely dependent on how your pages are generated. If it's just a matter of the "index.cfm" version vs. root ("/") versions of pages, those canonical should be straightforward. For the other parameters, though (like "i", "fs", etc.), it depends entirely on the function of those parameters.

            I know ColdFusion reasonably well, and even given that, I couldn't give you a one-size-fits-all rule that would solve the problem. It really has to be guided by your site structure and code/data logic. Personally, I'd start with the pattern that generates the most problems and solve that one first. In other words, if one template (like "/press-releases") generates dozens or hundreds of duplicates, deal with that first. If you solve the top 3-4 problems, you may clean up quite a bit. That could be more effective than trying to fix everything at once.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • jdossetti
              jdossetti @Dr-Pete last edited by

              Here's a spreadsheet sample. I did what Roberto suggested. I have a column with the ready for every duplicate content URL.

              The site is dynamic. That was the main problem I was facing, I'm not sure how to set the canonicals on each page without having to go into the html and copy the tag from the spreadsheet to the manually.

              I added the screenshot of builtwith.com in the main question hoping it would give anyone insight as to how I would code rules to set the canonicals.

              P9ygx

              Dr-Pete jdossetti 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Dr-Pete
                Dr-Pete Staff last edited by

                Could you provide an approximate example that matches your real situation (a fake domain is fine, but with the same basic format)? This is a situation where fake examples that don't match the real situation probably won't help us (or you) much.

                Once you have the spreadsheet, how are you going to translate that into tags? If this is a dynamic site, it would be better to be able to code rules to set the canonicals - and potentially much easier.

                jdossetti 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • rmontanez
                  rmontanez @jdossetti last edited by

                  Following the same concept:

                  1. Create a column (Column E) with the following information "then another column (Column F) with ""/>"
                  2. In column G enter the following formula: =CONCATENATE(E1,Cell of Duplicate URL, F3).

                  The end result will have Column A with the Domain in it.  Follow steps 6 & 7 to complete the process.

                  Feel free to send me a sample spreadsheet with some info and I can set it up for you.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • jdossetti
                    jdossetti @rmontanez last edited by

                    Roberto, Thank you for your answer. I just realized that I was unclear when I asked the question. I already have the link containing the canonical tag for each of the URLs ready. That is what column A already contains. I need to add that into the section of the pages in column 2,3, and 4. I'm just unsure how to do this for 1800 rows each containing the correct URL in column A, and in column 2,3, and 4 the URLs of the duplicate content pages that need the link added to the section. Check the image below to see what I mean. I appreciate the effort though Farris

                    z7GSL

                    rmontanez 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • rmontanez
                      rmontanez last edited by

                      Farris,

                      This is the way I would do it.

                      You have the following columns created:

                      • Column A: "canonical" tag for UR
                      • Column B: Duplicate Content URL # 1
                      • Column 😄 Duplicate Content URL # 2
                      • Column 😧 Duplicate Content URL # 1

                      Follow the next steps:

                      1. Create three more columns with to duplicate columns B, C, D
                      2. Use the following formula on column B "**=CONCATENATE(A1,B1)" **
                      3. Copy the same formula for columns C & D
                      4. Replace the “B1” in your formula for the respective columns (i.e. Column C should have C1.)
                      5. Copy & Paste the content of columns E, F, G (The copied columns with formulas)  to all the rows.
                      6. Once copied, the information in columns E, F, G should look like the end result that you want.
                      7. if data is correct, copy columns E, F, G and paste in the same location but use Paste Special and paste values only.  This will remove your formulas.

                      I hope this helps.

                      jdossetti 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 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

                      • andrew-mso

                        Canonical or hreflang?

                        I have four English sites for four different countries, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I want to share some content between the sites. On the pages that share the content, which is essentially exactly the same on all 4 sites, do I use the hreflang tags like: or do I add a canonical tag to the other three pointing to the "origin", which would be the UK site? I believe it is best practice to use one or the other, but I'm not sure which make sense in this situation.

                        Technical SEO | | andrew-mso
                        0
                      • lina_digital

                        I am trying to generate GEO meta tag for my website where on one page there are multiple locations My question is, Can I add GEO tagging for every address?

                        Am I restricted to 1 geo tag per page or can i add multiple geo tags ?

                        Technical SEO | | lina_digital
                        0
                      • BrianAlpert78

                        Does a no-indexed parent page impact its child pages?

                        If I have a page* in WordPress that is set as private and is no-indexed with Yoast, will that negatively affect the visibility of other pages that are set as children of that first page? *The context is that I want to organize some of the pages on a business's WordPress site into silos/directories. For example, if the business was a home remodeling company, it'd be convenient to keep all the pages about bathrooms, kitchens, additions, basements, etc. bundled together under a "services" parent page (/services/kitchens/, /services/bathrooms/, etc.). The thing is that the child pages will all be directly accessible from the menus, so there doesn't need to be anything on the parent /services/ page itself. Another such parent page/directory/category might be used to keep different photo gallery pages together (/galleries/kitchen-photos/, /galleries/bathroom-photos/, etc.). So again, would it be safe for pages like /services/kitchens/ and /galleries/addition-photos/ if the /services/ and /galleries/ pages (but not /galleries/* or anything like that) are no-indexed? Thanks!

                        Technical SEO | | BrianAlpert78
                        1
                      • znotes

                        Do you need a canonical tag for search and filter pages?

                        Hi Moz Community, We've been implementing new canonical tags for our category pages but I have a question about pages that are found via search and our filtering options. Would we still need a canonical tag for pages that show up in search + a filter option if it only lists one page of items? Example below. www.uncommongoods.com/search.html/find/?q=dog&exclusive=1 Thanks!

                        Technical SEO | | znotes
                        0
                      • O2C

                        Blog Page Titles - Page 1, Page 2 etc.

                        Hi All, I have a couple of crawl errors coming up in MOZ that I am trying to fix. They are duplicate page title issues with my blog area. For example we have a URL of www.ourwebsite.com/blog/page/1 and as we have quite a few blog posts they get put onto another page, example www.ourwebsite.com/blog/page/2 both of these urls have the same heading, title, meta description etc. I was just wondering if this was an actual SEO problem or not and if there is a way to fix it. I am using Wordpress for reference but I can't see anywhere to access the settings of these pages. Thanks

                        Technical SEO | | O2C
                        0
                      • AubbiefromAubenRealty

                        Multiple H1 Tags on Page

                        Can having multiple H1 tags on a webpage be detrimental to its rankings?

                        Technical SEO | | AubbiefromAubenRealty
                        0
                      • TogetherCare

                        Magento Dublicate Content (Noindex and Rel"canonical")

                        Hi All, Just looking for some advice regarding my website on magento. We by mistake didnt enable canonical tags and noindex tags so had a big problem with dublicate content from filter pages but also have URLs to Cats as Yes so this didnt help with not having canonical tags enabled. We now have everything enabled for a few weeks now but dont see much drop in indexed pages in google. (currently 27k and we have only 5k products) My question basically is how do we speed up noindexation of dublicate content and also would you change URL to cats as No so google just now sees the url to products? (my concerns with this is would leaving it to Yes help because it will hopefully read the canonical tags on products now) Thank you in advance Michael

                        Technical SEO | | TogetherCare
                        0
                      • reidsteven75

                        How Does Google's "index" find the location of pages in the "page directory" to return?

                        This is my understanding of how Google's search works, and I am unsure about one thing in specific: Google continuously crawls websites and stores each page it finds (let's call it "page directory") Google's "page directory" is a cache so it isn't the "live" version of the page Google has separate storage called "the index" which contains all the keywords searched.  These keywords in "the index" point to the pages in the "page directory" that contain the same keywords. When someone searches a keyword, that keyword is accessed in the "index" and returns all relevant pages in the "page directory" These returned pages are given ranks based on the algorithm The one part I'm unsure of is how Google's "index" knows the location of relevant pages in the "page directory".  The keyword entries in the "index" point to the "page directory" somehow. I'm thinking each page has a url in the "page directory", and the entries in the "index" contain these urls.   Since Google's "page directory" is a cache, would the urls be the same as the live website (and would the keywords in the "index" point to these urls)? For example if webpage is found at wwww.website.com/page1, would the "page directory" store this page under that url in Google's cache? The reason I want to discuss this is to know the effects of changing a pages url by understanding how the search process works better.

                        Technical SEO | | reidsteven75
                        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
                      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.