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.
What is the correct Canonical tag on m.site?
-
We have 2 separate sites for desktop (www.example.com) and mobile (m.example.com)
As per the guideline, we have added Rel=alternate tag on www.example.com to point to mobile URL(m.example.com) and Rel=canonical tag on m.example.com to point to Desktop site(www.example.com).However, i didn't find any guideline on what canonical tag we should add ifFor Desktop sitewww.example.com/PageA - has a canonical tag to www.example.com/PageBOn this page, we have a Rel=alternate tag m.example.com/pageAWhat will be the canonical we should add for the mobile version of Page Am.example.com/PageA - Canonical tag point to www.example.com/PageA -or www.example.com/PageB?Kalpesh
-
Hi, I hope this helps,
Do NOT point desktop pages to m. pages via a
rel="canonical" tags use rel="alternate" for that & make sure
rel="canonical"tag on the m. URL pointing to the corresponding desktop URL
Annotations for desktop and mobile URLs
- On the desktop page, add a
rel="alternate"
tag pointing to the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site's mobile pages. - On the mobile page, add a
rel="canonical"
tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL.
We support two methods to have this annotation: in the HTML of the pages themselves and in sitemaps. For example, suppose that the desktop URL is
https://example.com/page-1
and the corresponding mobile URL ishttps://m.example.com/page-1
. The annotations in this example would be as follows.Annotations in the HTML
On the desktop page (
https://www.example.com/page-1
), add the following annotation:<code dir="ltr"><linkrel="alternate"media="only screen="" and="" (max-width:="" 640px)"<br="">href="https://m.example.com/page-1"></linkrel="alternate"media="only></code>
On the mobile page (
https://m.example.com/page-1
), the required annotation should be:<code dir="ltr"><linkrel="canonical"href="https: www.example.com="" page-1"=""></linkrel="canonical"href="https:></code>
This
rel="canonical"
tag on the mobile URL pointing to the desktop page is required.A page have a self-referencing canonical URL
In the example above, we link the non-canonical page to the canonical version. But should a page set a rel=canonical for itself? I strongly recommend having a canonical link element on every page and Google has confirmed that’s best. That’s because most Sites & CMS’s will allow URL parameters without changing the content.
So all of these URLs would show the same content:
-
https://www.example.com/page-1
-
https://www.example.com/page-1/?isnt=it-awesome
-
https://www.example.com/page-1/?cmpgn=twitter
-
https://www.example.com/page-1/?cmpgn=facebook
Using a mobile website version of their desktop version, they need to implement a canonical tag on their mobile website page with an URL of the desktop version.
For example,
Your main domain: iamexample.com
Your mobile version: m.iamexample.com
Then, have this tag in the section of your main domain -
And, have this tag in the section of your mobile version page -
Mobile-Specific URLs, Such as AMP Pages or a Mobile-Specific Subdomain
Creating content with mobile in mind is a marketing must -- just be sure to remember to set your canonical URLs when you have pages that are specific to mobile but have the same content as a page on the desktop version of your website. For AMP pages specifically, Google also provides detailed guidelines on how to correctly differentiate your Accelerated Mobile Page from your standard webpage.
SEE:
- https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/separate-urls
- https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/
- https://moz.com/blog/cross-domain-rel-canonical-seo-value-cross-posted-content
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
- https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical
Hope this helps,
Tom
- On the desktop page, add a
-
You shouldn't have canonical tags on either pointing to the other IMO. A canonical tag, deployed on a web-page, says to Google "I am the non-canonical version of a page. Unless you have signals like links which contradict this tag strongly, don't index this non-canonical page at all. Only index the canonical URL which I am pointing you to"
So the page which you place the canonical tag on, becomes (itself) non canonical and therefore gives a medium-to-strong signal to Google that it should be de-indexed. As such, if you plaster your mobile site in canonical tags, you are essentially telling Google that the entire mobile site is non-canonical and thereby probably not a great candidate for indexation. Do you want your mobile site to rank? I assume you do
I don't know what guidance you have read. Google's guidance is often woefully out of date as their documentation update cycle for organic-search stuff is really poor. If it was something here on Moz, I personally disagree with it
I would just stick with the alternate tags. Anyway if you have canonicals going in two directions, you will create a soft redirect loop where both URLs specify themselves as non-canonical. That could make things way worse than they are now
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
-
Who is correct - please help!
I have a website with a lot of product pages - often thousands of pages. As each of these pages is for a specific lease car they are often only fractionally different from other pages. The urls are too long, the H1 is often too long and the Title is often too long for "SEO best practice". And they do create duplication issues according to MOZ. Some people tell me to change them to noindex/nofollow whilst others tell me to leave them as they are as best not to hide from google crawler. Any advice will be gratefully received. Thanks for listening.
Technical SEO | | jlhitch0 -
Canonical tag use for ecommerce product page detail
Hi, I have a category page I want to rank. This page has 24 different products quite similar but not exactly the same.
Technical SEO | | amastone
I want to use canonical tag in any product to the parent category.
Is this a right use of the canonical?
Category page I'm talking about is : Finger bits If I understand how to use canonical tags I can improve all my category pages. thanks marco0 -
Do you need a canonical tag for search and filter pages?
Hi Moz Community, We've been implementing new canonical tags for our category pages but I have a question about pages that are found via search and our filtering options. Would we still need a canonical tag for pages that show up in search + a filter option if it only lists one page of items? Example below. www.uncommongoods.com/search.html/find/?q=dog&exclusive=1 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
Can I set a canonical tag to an anchor link?
I have a client who is moving to a one page website design. So, content from the inner pages is being condensed in to sections on the 'home' page. There will be a navigation that anchor links to each relevant section. I am wondering if I should leave the old pages and use rel=canonical to point them to their relevant sections on the new 'home' page rather than 301 them. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Vizergy0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?
Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.
Technical SEO | | ztalk1120 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1 -
I need help with a PHP canonical URL tags
I found a little difficult for me to do a canonical tag in my PHP. On-Page Report Card We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply. I don't know how to tidy my PHP Any suggestion.
Technical SEO | | lnietob0