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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Why is rel="canonical" pointing at a URL with parameters bad?

    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.

    Why is rel="canonical" pointing at a URL with parameters bad?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    5
    6691
    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.
    • Solid_Gold
      Solid_Gold last edited by

      Context

      Our website has a large number of crawl issues stemming from duplicate page content (source: Moz).

      According to an SEO firm which recently audited our website, some amount of these crawl issues are due to URL parameter usage. They have recommended that we "make sure every page has a Rel Canonical tag that points to the non-parameter version of that URL…parameters should never appear in Canonical tags."

      Here's an example URL where we have parameters in our canonical tag...

      http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/

      rel="canonical" href="http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/womens-costumes/?pageSize=0&pageSizeBottom=0" />

      Our website runs on IBM WebSphere v 7.

      Questions

      1. Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL?
      2. What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters?
      3. Any advice for correcting this?

      Thanks for any help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Solid_Gold
        Solid_Gold @Eric_Rohrback last edited by

        Thanks for the response, Eric.

        My research suggested the same plan of attack: 1) fixing the canonical tags and 2) Google Search Console URL Parameters. It's helpful to get your confirmation.

        My best guess is that the parameters you've cited above are not needed for every URL. I agree that this looks like something WebSphere Commerce probably controls. I'm a few organizational layers removed from whoever set this up for us. I'll try to track down where we can control that.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Solid_Gold
          Solid_Gold @Mobilio last edited by

          Thanks Peter!

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

            Peter has a great answer with some good resources referenced, and i'll try to add on a little bit:

            1. Why it is important that the rel canonical tag points to a non-parameter URL?

            It's important to use clean URLs so search engines can understand the site structure (like Peter mentioned), which will help reduce the potential for index bloat and ranking issues. The more pages out there containing the same content (ie duplicate content), the harder it will be for search engines to determine which is the best page to show in search results. While there is no "duplicate content penalty" there could be a self inflicted wound by providing too many similar options. The canonical tag is supposed to be a level of control for you to tell Google which page is the most appropriate version. In this case it should be the clean URL since that will be where you want people to start. Users can customize from there using faceted navigation or custom options.

            2. What is the extent of the negative impact from having rel canonicals pointing to URLs including parameters?

            Basically duplicate content and indexing issues. Both of those things you really want to avoid when running an eComm shop since that will make your pages compete with each other for ranking. That could cost ranking, visits, and revenue if implemented wrong.

            3. Any advice for correcting this?

            Fix the canonical tags on the site would be your first step. Next you would want to exclude those parameters in the parameter handling section of Google Search Console. That will help by telling Google to ignore URLs with the elements you add in that section. It's another step to getting clean URLs showing up in search results.

            I tried getting to http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/mens-costumes/ and realize the parameters are showing up by default like: http://www.chasing-fireflies.com/costumes-dress-up/mens-costumes/#w=*&af=cat2:costumedressup_menscostumes%20cat1:costumedressup%20pagetype:products

            Are the parameters needed for every URL? Seems like this is a websphere commerce setup kind of thing.

            Solid_Gold 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Mobilio
              Mobilio last edited by

              Clean (w/o parameters) canonical URL helps Google to understand better your url structure and avoid several mistakes:
              https://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.bg/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html <- mistake N:1
              http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/dangerous-rel-canonical-problems/  <- mistake N:4

              So - your company that giving this advise is CORRECT! You should provide naked URLs everywhere when it's possible.

              Solid_Gold 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
              • 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

              • gaiaslastlaugh

                Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?

                Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh
                0
              • lcourse

                What is best practice for "Sorting" URLs to prevent indexing and for best link juice ?

                We are now introducing 5 links in all our category pages for different sorting options of category listings.
                The site has about 100.000 pages and with this change the number of URLs may go up to over 350.000 pages.
                Until now google is indexing well our site but I would like to prevent the "sorting URLS" leading to less complete crawling of our core pages, especially since we are planning further huge expansion of pages soon. Apart from blocking the paramter in the search console (which did not really work well for me in the past to prevent indexing) what do you suggest to minimize indexing of these URLs also taking into consideration link juice optimization? On a technical level the sorting is implemented in a way that the whole page is reloaded, for which may be better options as well.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
                0
              • SilverStar1

                Using hreflang="en" instead of hreflang="en-gb"

                Hello, I have a question in regard to international SEO and the hreflang meta tag. We are currently a B2B business in the UK. Our major market is England with some exceptions of sales internationally. We are wanting to increase our ranking into other english speaking countries and regions such as Ireland and the Channel Islands. My research has found regional google search engines for Ireland (google.ie), Jersey (google.je) and Guernsey (google.gg). Now, all the regions have English as one their main language and here is my questions. Because I use hreflang=“en-gb” as my site language, am I regional excluding these countries and islands? If I used hreflang=“en” would it include these english speaking regions and possible increase the ranking on these the regional search engines? Thank you,

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SilverStar1
                1
              • vivekrathore

                "Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console

                Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore
                0
              • SEO_Promenade

                When is it recommended to use a self referencing rel "canonical"?

                In what type of a situation is it the best type of practice to use a self referencing rel "canonical" tag? Are there particular practices to be cautious of when using a self referencing  rel "canonical" tag? I see this practice used mainly with larger websites but I can't find any information that really explains when is a good time to make use of this practice for SEO purposes. Appreciate all feedback. Thank you in advance.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO_Promenade
                0
              • nicole.healthline

                Why is "Noindex" better than a "Canonical" for Pagination?

                "Noindex" is a suggested pagination technique here: http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284, and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page, but I'd love if someone can explain why "noindex" is better than a canonical?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline
                0
              • aactive

                Yoast & rel canonical for paginated Wordpress URLs

                Hello, our Wordpress blog at http://www.jobs.ca/career-resources has a rel canonical issue since we added pagination to the front page and category-pages. We're using Yoast and it's incorrectly applying a rel-canonical meta tag referencing page 1 on page 2, 3, etc. This is a known misuse of the rel-canonical tag (per Google's Webmaster Blog - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html, which says rel-canonical should be replaced with rel-prev and rel-next for page 2, 3, etc.). We don't see a way to specify anywhere in Yoast's options to correct this behaviour for page 2, 3, etc. Yoast allows you to override a page's canonical URL, otherwise it automatically uses the Wordpress permalink. My question is, does anyone know how to configure Yoast to properly replace rel-canonical tags with rel-prev and rel-next for paginated URLs, or do I need to look at another plugin or customize the behavior directly in my child theme code? This issue was brought up here as well: http://moz.com/community/q/canonical-help, but the only response did not relate to Yoast. (We're using Wordpress 3.6.1 and Yoast "Wordpress SEO" 1.4.18)

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aactive
                0
              • James77

                Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc

                I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
                /aclk   - No cd value
                /search - No cd value
                /url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
                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.