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  4. Does a non-canonical URL pass link juice?

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Does a non-canonical URL pass link juice?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • Choice
    Choice Subscriber last edited by Jul 2, 2015, 11:58 AM

    Our site received a great link from URL A, which was syndicated to URL B. But URL B is canonicalized to URL A. Does the link on URL B pass juice to my site?

    (See image below for a visual representation of my question)

    zgbzqBy

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • Choice
      Choice Subscriber @Cyrus-Shepard last edited by Jul 2, 2015, 4:01 PM Jul 2, 2015, 4:01 PM

      Thanks for answering, Cyrus! Will Open Site Explorer treat URL B as a new linking root domain and will it influence my DA? Just curious. Kind regards!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Cyrus-Shepard
        Cyrus-Shepard last edited by Jul 2, 2015, 3:55 PM Jul 2, 2015, 1:50 PM

        Complex question 🙂  Caveat: I don't work for Google and the precise workings of the canonical element in Google's algorithm is mostly educated speculation.

        The answer is somewhere in-between yes and no. That's because the canonical element means that URL B is treated as URL A. In that sense it really shouldn't pass any direct link authority.

        But(!) now let's complicate things. Let's point some links at URL B. (and not at URL A) In theory, those links are then canonicalized to URL A, and that equity passes to your site (yeah!)

        So it's not a direct influence, but you can in theory gain link equity from canonicalized versions of URLs that point to your site.

        Choice 1 Reply Last reply Jul 2, 2015, 4:01 PM Reply Quote 2
        • iSTORM-New-Media
          iSTORM-New-Media last edited by Jul 2, 2015, 12:23 PM Jul 2, 2015, 12:23 PM

          Agreed. URL A is now a higher authority page because of the proper canonical, which in turn means a link from URL A could have more value. But the equity from that link to URL B is not directly passed to your site.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • PatrickDelehanty
            PatrickDelehanty last edited by Jul 2, 2015, 12:20 PM Jul 2, 2015, 12:08 PM

            Hi there

            In my opinion, yes and no. Yes, because it gives proper ranking credit to the page that has the original content, but no, because it's not a redirect, so there is no equity being passed technically.

            There's not a real direct way to answer it in my opinion, so it's kind of hard to have a definitive answer, because there is being credit passed, but not in the form of link equity.

            Hope this helps! Good luck!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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