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.
Should my canonical tags point to the category page or the filter result page?
-
Hi Moz,
I'm working on an ecommerce site with categories, filter options, and sort options – teacherexpress.scholastic.com.
Should I have canonical tags from all filter and sort options point to the category page like gap.com and llbean.com? or have all sort options point to the filtered page URL like kohls.com?
I was under the impression that to use a canonical tag, the pages have to have the same content, meaning that Gap and L.L. Bean would be using canonical tags incorrectly. Using a filter changes the content, whereas using a sort option just changes the order.
What would be the best way to deal with duplicate content for this site?
Thanks for reading!
-
Hi Daniel,
You've gotten some good responses to your question. Do you have any additional questions or comments you would like to add?
-
I agree, that's a great approach. I think you mean Javascript, not Java though (that's a different language). The only thing that might make this approach a challenge would be if you had so much product data before filtering that it caused a performance problem, i.e. let's say you had 50 pages of results...if you filter server-side, you're only sending down 1 page of results, whereas if you're filtering with client-side Javascript, you've got to send all 50 pages down and then filter it in the browser.
-
Hi Daniel,
Another option may be use java on your filter page so that however customers filter the product, the URL will remain the same with extra parameters in the URL to filter out the products. I find this the best way as you have the same URL for all sort of customization/filter and able to avoid duplicate content.
For example: Macys
-
Hi Daniel,
You're going to have to walk a fine line between having a page for every possible combination of filtered results that a user might search for AND appearing to have a ton of pages that are really almost identical....and suffering the wrath of Panda upon seeing what it thinks is duplicate content.
The easy way out is to have 1 page for each category, and no matter what filters are applied, rel=canonical to that category. Dupe content problem solved.
So why isn't this the ideal solution?
#1 You may be missing out on targeting combinations of categories and filters that users will commonly search for. Let's say you were selling clothing, and a category was shirts, and you had a filter for men/women/boys/girls. By making all shirts list pages rel=canonical to the overall shirts list page (with no filters), you'd be missing an opportunity to target "boys shirts".
#2 You may be missing opportunities to pour more link juice to the individual product pages. It's unclear (to me, anyway) whether Google adds the link juice from all pages rel=canonical'ed to a page, or whether Google simply treats rel=canonical as "oh ya, I've already seen & dealt with this page". Certainly in my testing I've seen places where pages rel=canonical'ed to another page actually still show up in the search results, so I'd say rel=canonical isn't as solid as a 301.
So what do you do? I'd recommend a mix. Figure out what combinations you think you can get search traffic from, and find a way to break down the complete set of combinations of filters and categories to target those, and to rel=canonical every page to one of your targeted pages.
It's entirely possible (likely, even) that you'll end up with a mix. For instance, going back to my earlier example, let's say you had another filter that was, let's say, price range. You might want to target "boys shirts", but not "boys shirts under $20". So, while "boys" was a filter value, and "under $20" was a filter value, you might rel=canonical all pages in the category "boys" with a filter value of "shirts" to your page that has just that category and that 1 filter set, regardless of setting of the price filter.
Clear as monkey poop?
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
-
Key webpage fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP
Hi, We have found that one of our key webpages has been fluctuating between page 2 and page 6 of Google SERP for around 2 weeks. Some days it will be on page 6 in the morning and then page 2 in the afternoon. We have recently updated some copy on the page and wondered if this could be the cause. Has anyone else experienced this? If so how long was it before the page settled? https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/property-management-software/ Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | nfrank0 -
Footer menu links: Header tags or list items?
Hi, I would like to know header tags (h5 or h6) or list items ( ) works better for footer menu links for the best linking structure. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Header tags ratio matters?
Do we have anything like header tags ratio as of now in favour to search engines? Of course no multiple H1 tags. What if h2 or h3 tags are more than each others? We have top navigation links and one more navigation links which are h2 tags across all pages of website. Does this hurt?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
If my article is reposted on another blog, using re=canonical, does that count as a link back?
Hey all! My company blog is interested in letting another blog repost our article. We would ask them to use "re-canonical" in the mark-up to avoid Google digging through "duplicate" info out there. I was wondering, if the other site does use the "re=canonical", will that appear as a backlink or no? I understand that metrics will flow back to my original URL and not the canonical one, but I am wondering if the repost will additionally show as a backlink. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | cmguidry0 -
Ahrefs - What Causes a Drastic Loss in Referring Pages?
While I was doing research on UK Flower companies I noticed that one particular domain had great rankings (top 3), but has slid quite a bit down to page two. After investigating further I noticed that they had a drastic loss of referring pages, but an increase in total referring domains. See this screenshot from ahrefs. I took a look at their historical rankings (got them from the original SEO provider's portfolio) and compared it to the Wayback Machine. There did not seem to be any drastic changes in the site structure. My question is what would cause such a dramatic loss in total referring pages while showing a dramatic increase in referring domains? It appears that the SEO company was trying rebound from the loss of links though. Any thoughts on why this might happen? 56VD5jD
Algorithm Updates | | AaronHenry0 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
Why has my homepage been replaced in Google by my Facebook page?
Hi. I was wondering if others have had this happen to them. Lately, I've noticed that on a couple of my sites the homepage no longer appears in the Google SERP. Instead, a Facebook page I've created appears in the position the homepage used to get. My subpages still get listed in Google--just not the homepage. Obviously, I'd prefer that both the homepage and Facebook page appear. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your help!
Algorithm Updates | | TuxedoCat0 -
Is using WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) ok for On-Page SEO?
Hi Mozzers, I'm investigating multilingual site setup and translating content for a small website for 15-20 pages and came accross WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) which looks like it could help, but I am curious as to whether it has any major international SEO limitations before trialing/buying. It seems to allow the option to automatically setup language folder structures as www.domain.com/it/ or www.domain.com/es/ etc which is great and seems to offer easy way of linking out to translators (for extra fee), which could be convenient. However what about the on-page optimization - url names, title tags and other onpage elements - I wonder if anyone has any experiences with using this plugin or any alternatives for it. Hoping for your valued advice!
Algorithm Updates | | emerald0