Increase in duplicate page titles due to canonical tag issue
-
Implemented canonical tag (months back) in product pages to avoid duplicate content issue. But Google picks up the URL variations and increases duplicate page title errors in Search Console.
Original URL: www.example.com/first-product-name-123456
Canonical tag:
Variation 1: www.example.com/first-product--name-123456
Canonical tag:
Variation 2: www.example.com/first-product-name-sync-123456
Canonical tag:
Kindly advice the right solution to fix the issue.
-
Can you share actual instances? Feel free to PM me those. I need to look at the actual setup. The above looks okay, but there might be something else going on.
Also, remember that a canonical is a suggestion. If the SEs deem the page valid enough, different enough, or just plain don't know what to do with them yet, they can still index them.
Let me know the real URLs and I'll take a look.
-
We require "id" while generating canonical tag for the product pages. I tested with couple of online SEO tools and result seems to be fine.
-
Well in theory it looks good except:
Why do you use id tags in canonical code and why your code doesn't start with rel="canonical"?Of course you can use canonical tag alongside with other tags, such as hreflang ( i use it and it works perfect but i start my "<link" with="" canonical,="" than="" hreflang="" and="" then="" the="" url="" in="" question).="" but="" still,="" to="" my="" knowledge="" you="" should="" start="" link="" statement="" a="" canonical="" tag...="" <br="">i would always start with: Have you checked in various SEO tools if they can find that you have canonical code in your page? </link">
Maybe someone can enlighten me if i am wrong
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
-
Are keywords in the title tag becoming redundant?
I've noticed that lot's of the world's leading digital agencies are not using keywords in their titles. Eg AKQA, DigitasLBi, POKE, SYZYGY etc. Why is that? Are keywords no longer that important? This can't be accidental seeing as it's the case for so many leading agencies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RRoginator0 -
Same product in different categories and duplicate content issues
Hi,I have some questions related to duplicate content on e-commerce websites. 1)If a single product goes to multiple categories (eg. A black elegant dress could be listed in two categories like "black dresses" and "elegant dresses") is it considered duplicate content even if the product url is unique? e.g www.website.com/black-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/elegant-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/black-elegant-dress unique url > this is the way my products urls look like Does google perceive this as duplicated content? The path to the content is only one, so it shouldn't be seen as duplicated content, though the product is repeated in different categories.This is the most important concern I actually have. It is a small thing but if I set this wrong all website would be affected and thus penalised, so I need to know how I can handle it. 2- I am using wordpress + woocommerce. The website is built with categories and subcategories. When I create a product in the product page backend is it advisable to select just the lowest subcategory or is it better to select both main category and subcategory in which the product belongs? I usually select the subcategory alone. Looking forward to your reply and suggestions. thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cinzia091 -
Duplicate Page Due To Website Display Function
Hi Can anyone help with how I can rectify a duplicate issue? A high priority on my Moz report shows a duplicate issue however, this is due to the way the website is structured. For example. the below duplicate is created due to the website having a function to display all trips, so customers do not need to search page by page i.e: http://www.bikecation.co.uk/categories/cycling-climbs http://www.bikecation.co.uk/categories/cycling-climbs/page/2?showall=1 My question is, Will this format damage the SEO for this page? Is there a way to rectify? Would a canonical tag work in this case? Many Thanks Claire
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Strateji0 -
Branding and Page Titles - Please Help
Hello, I have a question about page titles. How important is branding here? I'm not referring to the company name, but rather the terminology that's used as "branding language" for a company. For example, let's say that the it would be a good idea to target the keyword "Restaurant Coupons" based on search volume and competition. However, our branding adheres to the language "Dining Offers". Is it considered a bad idea to use "Restaurant Coupons" in the page title? Or is that considered inconsistent branding? Basically, I'm just trying to figure out the correct balance between the SEO value of words and adhering to a company's branding. Any help is appreciated! Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atmosol
Nick1 -
Canonical Vs No Follow for Duplicate Products
I am in the process of migrating a site from Volusion to BigCommerce. There is a limitation on the ability to display one product in 2 different ways. Here is the situation. One of the manufacturers will not allow us to display products to customers who are not logged in. We have convinced them to let us display the products with no prices. Then we created an Exclusive Contractor section that will allow users to see the price and be able to purchase the products online. Originally we were going to just direct users to call to make purchases like our competitors are doing. Because we have a large amount of purchasers online we wanted to manipulate the system to be able to allow online purchases. Since these products will have duplicates with no pricing I was thinking that Canonical tags would be kind of best practice. However, everything will be behind a firewall with a message directing people to log in. Since this will undoubtedly create a high bounce rate I feel like I need to no follow those links. This is a rather large site, over 5000 pages. The 250 no follow URLs most likely won't have a large impact on the overall performance of the site. Or so I hope anyway. My gut tells me if these products are going to technically be hidden from the searcher they should also be hidden from the engines. Does Disallowing these URLs seem like a better way to do this than simply using the Canonical tags? Any thoughts or suggestions would be really helpful!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonicaOConnor0 -
Why are these pages considered duplicate content?
I have a duplicate content warning in our PRO account (well several really) but I can't figure out WHY these pages are considered duplicate content. They have different H1 headers, different sidebar links, and while a couple are relatively scant as far as content (so I might believe those could be seen as duplicate), the others seem to have a substantial amount of content that is different. It is a little perplexing. Can anyone help me figure this out? Here are some of the pages that are showing as duplicate: http://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/advanced/byNarrator/narrator/Seth+Green/?bioid=5554 http://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/advanced/byAuthor/author/Solomon+Northup/?bioid=11758 http://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/advanced/byNarrator/?mediatype=audio+books&bioid=3665 http://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/advanced/byAuthor/author/Marcus+Rediker/?bioid=10145 http://www.downpour.com/catalogsearch/advanced/byNarrator/narrator/Robin+Miles/?bioid=2075
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DownPour0 -
K3 duplicate page content and title tags
I'm running a Joomla site, have just installed k2 as our blogging platform. Our Crawl Report with SEOMOZ shows a good bit of duplicate content and duplicate title tags with our K2 blog. We've installed sh404SEF. Will I need to go into sh404SEF each time we generate a blog entry to point the titles to one URL? If there is something simpler please advise. Thank you, Don
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | donaldmoore0 -
Should I prevent Google from indexing blog tag and category pages?
I am working on a website that has a regularly updated Wordpress blog and am unsure whether or not the category and tag pages should be indexable. The blog posts are often outranked by the tag and category pages and they are ultimately leaving me with a duplicate content issue. With this in mind, I assumed that the best thing to do would be to remove the tag and category pages from the index, but after speaking to someone else about the issue, I am no longer sure. I have tried researching online, but there isn't anything that provided any further information. Please can anyone with any experience of dealing with issues like this or with any knowledge of the topic help me to resolve this annoying issue. Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulRogers0