cross canonicalization with redirect
-
I'm working with a website that has turned one of its pages into its own website within the main website - mostly for the ease of customers, making it simpler to access that page using www.page.com rather than www.mainsite.com/about/page.
As a result, there are two urls for that page (the ones just mentioned), both pointing to the exact same page, but with different urls. Now, they have made it so www.mainsite.com/about/page permanently redirects to www.page.com. which I thought was a good call. However, what do I do about canonicalization? Is it good to point the canonicalization of www.page.com to www.mainsite.com/about/page so that the rankings and link equity are maintained in the main website? Or would the fact that the www.mainsite.com/about/page redirects to www.page.com mess that up?I hope this makes sense!
-
thanks you for information. jacketskingdom.com
-
@JefferyDavis Thank you so much! Yes, I figured most of that as I was mulling it over. But I had not thought of checking to monitor indexing, etc.
Thank you for the reminder! -
@Shrine-SEO-Gal In this situation, it's important to handle canonicalization carefully to ensure that search engines understand which URL you want to be recognized as the primary source of content, and to maintain your site's SEO value.
Here are some steps you can take:
Use the Correct Canonical Tag: On the new page, set the canonical tag to point to itself. This signals to search engines that this is the preferred version of the page.
Redirect the Old URL: Implement a 301 redirect from the old page to the new one. This indicates to search engines that the page has permanently moved.
Avoid Canonical Conflicts: Do not point the canonical tag on the new page back to the old one. This could create confusion and dilute link equity.
Monitor Performance: After implementing these changes, monitor your website’s performance in search engines using tools to track indexing and any potential issues.
Update Internal Links: Ensure that all internal links on the main site are updated to point to the new page to reinforce the new URL structure.
By following these steps, you can effectively manage the transition and help maintain your site's SEO value.
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
-
301 redirect syntax for htaccess
I'm working on some htaccess redirects for a few stray pages and have come across a few different varieties of 301s that are confusing me a bit....Most sources suggest: Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html or using some combination of: RewriteRule + RewriteCond + RegEx I've also found examples of: RedirectPermanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html I'm confused because our current htaccess file has quite a few (working) redirects that look like this: Redirect permanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html This syntax seems to work, but I'm yet to find another Redirect permanent in the wild, only examples of Redirect 301 or RedirectPermanent Is there any difference between these? Would I benefit at all from replacing Redirect permanent with Redirect 301?
Technical SEO | | SamKlep1 -
301 Redirect Expert
I have hired two website people from odesk and had bad experience in 301 redirects. One never got it done and the other cause my website to crash on a 500 error code, he load all the redirects in a script on .htaccess on my wordpress site on godaddy, there were 1400 redirect.Can somebody recommend a expert for my redirect problem.
Technical SEO | | tjacquet0 -
301 redirect homepage question
Hi If i have a homepage which is available at both www.homepage.com and www.homepage.com// should i 301 the // version to the first version. Im curious as to whether slashes are taking into consideration Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | TheZenAgency0 -
Domain redirect
Recently we launched a site under a new domain, the site is doing well under the URL. Client calls me today and would like to have another domain he owns point to the new site. The domain he has has no history and no content. He is under the impression that people are looking for him by typing in www.domainxyz.com. I attempted to explain otherwise to him, but I lost. Question, what are the drawbacks of taking this domin and doing a perm redirect via . Httpaccess file?
Technical SEO | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Index.php and 301 redirect with Joomla
Hi, I'm running Joomla 1.7 with SEF on and I'm trying to do a htaccess redirect which fails. I have approximately 100 in effect so far and all working fine, but I have one snag. Index.php is not working as I need it to when it's redirected to www.myurl.com/ If I turn on index.php redirect to root using this code #index.php to root
Technical SEO | | NaescentAdam
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myurl.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.myurl.com$
RewriteRule ^index.php$ "http://www.myurl.com/" [R=301,L] And then go to www.myurl.com/test.html I'm redirected to the homepage. I think this is because all pages are index.php in joomla. SEOMOZ and Google both think that index.php and root are duplicate pages. Does anyone have any advice for overcoming this? Thanks, Adam0 -
301 redirects and Dynamic URLs
I just ran my first diagnostic and one of my primary immediate problems are duplicate titles and duplicate content. My guess it that because the root URL http://sitename.com (which has not yet been redirected to www...) has generated an entire tree of content which is identical to the tree rooted at http://www.sitename.com. QUESTION: Do I need to do a redirect simply for the root url (sitename.com -> www.sitename.com) or do I now need to develop specific 301 redirects for each of the sub-nodes/pages? ie sitename.com/?q=about-us -> www.sitename.com/?q=about-us sitename.com/?q=our-team -> www.sitename.com/?q=our-team etc.
Technical SEO | | Barrycliff680 -
When should you turn off redirects to your new domain?
Our website moved to a new domain a year ago, and we have our original domain to redirect to our new domain. We're working on contacting people who still link to our old domain to ask them to update, but 7% of our traffic is still coming as a redirect from our old domain. My question is, when should we just shut the old domain down entirely and stop redirecting people to our new domain? Or should we just keep it up indefinitely? What would be the positive or negative impact on our new domain's SEO if we shut the old domain down? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | UWPCE0 -
Wordpress 301 redirects
I use wordpress as CMS on a few sites and I noticed that word press automattically places 301s if I change a url etc. I believe it does it by having the following in the .htaccess file: BEGIN WordPress<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-fRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-dRewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Should I use this? I feel like it limits my control over the 301s.
Technical SEO | | mmaes0