Added a canonical ref tag and SERPs tanked, should we change it back?
-
My client's CMS uses an internal linking structure that includes index.php at the end of the URLs. The site also works using SEO-friendly URLs without index.php, so the SEO tool identified a duplicate content issue.
Their marketing team thought the pages with index.php would have better link equity and rank higher, so they added a canonical ref tag, making the index.php version of the pages the canonical page. As a result, the site dropped in the rankings by a LOT and has not recovered in the last 3-months.
It appears that Google had automatically selected the SEO-friendly URLs as the canonical page, and by switching, it re-indexed the entire site.
The question we have is, should they change it back? Or will this cause the site to be reindexed again, resulting in an even lower ranking?
-
Yes, I think you should change it back. Because canonical tags affect SEO from two points of view. For once, they directly influence how search results are displayed. The SEO tool found a duplicate content problem because the website also functions with SEO-friendly URLs that do not include index.php. Canonical tags have multiple benefits only when they are implemented correctly. So, please check your ref tag again and change it accordingly.
-
What is the technical limitation? consider 301 redirects from index.php to seo-friendly urls
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
-
Rel: Canonical - checking advice provided by SEO agency
Hey all, We have two brands one bigger and one smaller that are on 2 different domains. We are wanting to repost some of the articles from the smaller brand to the bigger brand and what was a bit of curve ball, our SEO agency advised us NOT to put a rel: canonical on the reposted articles on the bigger brands site. This is counter to what i'm used to and just wanted to confirm with the gurus out there if this is good advice or bad advice. Thanks 🙂
Technical SEO | | Redooo0 -
Unsolved Strange "?offset" URL found with content crawl issues
I recently recieved a slew of content crawl issues via Moz for URL's that I have never seen before For example:
Moz Pro | | HannahPalamara
Standard URL: https://skilldirector.com/news,
Newly identified URL: https://skilldirector.com/news?offset=1469542207800&category=Competency+Management). Does anyone know where the URL comes from and how to fix it?0 -
Unsolved Halkdiki Properties
Hello,
Moz Pro | | TheoVavdinoudis
I have a question about Site Crawl: Content Issues segment. I have an e-shop and moz showing me problem because my urls are too similar and my H1s are the same
<title>Halkdiki Properties
https://halkidikiproperties.com/en/properties?property_category=1com&property_subcategory=&price_min_range=&price_max_range=&municipality=&area=&sea_distance=&bedroom=&hotel_bedroom=&bathroom=&place=properties&pool=&sq_min=&sq_max=&year_default=&fetures=&sort=1&length=12&ids= <title>Halkdiki Properties
https://halkidikiproperties.com/en/properties?property_category=2&property_subcategory=&price_min_range=0&price_max_range=0&municipality=&area=&sea_distance=&bedroom=0&hotel_bedroom=0&bathroom=0&place=properties&pool=0&sq_min=&sq_max=&year_default=&fetures=&sort=1&length=12&ids= Can someone help, is a big problem or I ignore it?? thank you0 -
"Duplicate without user-selected canonical” - impact to Google Ads costs
Hello, we are facing some issues on our project and we would like to get some advice. Scenario
Paid Search Marketing | | Alex_Pisa
We run several websites (www.brandName.com, www.brandName.be, www.brandName.ch, etc..) all in French language . All sites have nearly the same content & structure, only minor text (some headings and phone numbers due to different countries are different). There are many good quality pages, but again they are the same over all domains. Current solution
Currently we don’t use canonicals, instead we use rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default": <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-BE" href="https://www.brandName.be/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CA" href="https://www.brandName.ca/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-CH" href="https://www.brandName.ch/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-FR" href="https://www.brandName.fr/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-LU" href="https://www.brandName.lu/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.brandName.com/" /> Naturally this si reflected in ""Duplicate without user-selected canonical” . Issue
We create the same ad in Google Ads for 2 domains. So the content is mostly identical, ads are identical, target URLs differ only in domain. Yet Google Ads “Quality score” is different (10/10 vs. 6/10) and “Landing page experience” is very different (Above average vs. Average). Some members of our team think lower “Landing page experience” increases the Google Ads costs, which I personally don't believe, but I want to double check. Question: Can “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” issue decrease the “Landing page experience” rating and as result can it cause higher Google ads costs? Any suggestions/ideas appreciated, thanks. Regards.0 -
Question on noscript tags and indexing
If I have a <noscript>tag on every page of my website with the same sentence over and over saying something to the effect of "Sorry our site uses Javascript, please enable javascript for the full site experience.", Webmaster Tools will tell me that one of the most common words on my site is "Javascript".</p> <p>Is this something to be concerned about from an SEO perspective? My site is obviously not about Javascript and I don't want to dilute my page's topic or authority by repeating words that are not relevant to the topic of my site.</p> <p>Thanks!</p></noscript>
Technical SEO | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
The Mysterious Case of Pagination, Canonical Tags
Hey guys, My head explodes when I think of this problem. So I will leave it to you guys to find a solution... My root domain (xxx.com) runs on WordPress platform. I use Yoast SEO plugin. The next page of root domain -- page/2/ -- has been canonicalized to the same page -- page/2/ points to page/2/ for example. The page/2/ and remaining pages also have this rel tags: I have also added "noindex,follow" to page/2/ and further -- Yoast does this automatically. Note: Yoast plugin also adds canonical to page/2/...page/3/ automatically. Same is the case with category pages and tag pages. Oh, and the author pages too -- they all have self-canonicalization, rel prev & rel next tags, and have been "noindex, followed." Problem: Am I doing this the way it should be done? I asked a Google Webmaster employee on rel next and prev tags, and this is what she said: "We do not recommend noindexing later pages, nor rel="canonical"izing everything to the first page." (My bad, last year I was canonicalizing pages to first page). One of the popular blog, a competitor, uses none of these tags. Yet they rank higher. Others following this format have been hit with every kind of Google algorithm I could think of. I want to leave it to Google to decide what's better, but then again, Yoast SEO plugin rules my blog -- okay, let's say I am a bad coder. Any help, suggestions, and thoughts are highly appreciated. 🙂 Update 1: Paginated pages -- including category pages and tag pages -- have unique snippets; no full-length posts. Thought I'd make that clear.
Technical SEO | | sidstar0 -
Duplicate Title Tags and Meta Desc even with the correct Canonical Tag
I show a large/growing number of duplicate title tags and duplicate meta descriptions in my webmaster tools. I look at both pages Link 1 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink.html Link 2 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink/limit/16.html Both pages have the following canonical url: <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers.html" > Why does this show up as a duplicate title tag and description to Google still?
Technical SEO | | bhalverson0 -
Title Tag Wordpress
I need to know how can I personalize the title tag individually in my categories?
Technical SEO | | nafera20