Canonical category pages
-
A couple of years ago I used to receive a lot of traffic via my category pages but now I don't receive as much, in the past year I've modified the category pages to canonical.
I have 15 genres for the category pages, other than the most recent sorting there is no sorting available for the users on the cat pages, a recent image link added can over time drop off to page 2 of the category page, for example
mysite.com/cat-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-23. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/dog-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-53. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/turtle-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-2. New image link can drop off to page 2.
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
One thing that I have noticed is the unique popup short description tooltips that I have on the image links only appears in google for the first pages of each category page, it seems to ignore the other pages. In view of this am I right in applying canonical ref or just treating it as normal pages.?
thanks
-
I'm going to have to hold off on this google have done an update today which is why we've now dropped from p4 to p14. I've posted a message here
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en&start=1360
-
No Problem - Keep us posted!
-
thanks Damien
I'm going to give this a go once my website re-appears in the search engine. After 1.5 years at number four it's decided to disappear today. I think google anticipated what I was intending to do and employed their new jedi mind tricks to de-rank me. I'll see what tommorow brings.
have a good one.
-
This is because you've canonicalised all pages that come from that page.
E.G.
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
This is telling Google to look at your pages but if possible index ONLY the cat-page1 as you've recommended it in your canonical tag. If you want the other pages to rank you're going to have to remove the canonical tag.
You could also change the canonical tag to:
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page2.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page3.html
This will enable you to add any variable you wish on the end (if you need to) without duplicating the content on a different URL in Google's eyes.
For a test try just changing the canonical tag on the 2nd category page and see what happens.
Hope this helps
DD
-
Hi
All 100 image links on each category page are unique that each point to their respective unique pages. The only thing, is that as new image links get added to the top it can push older content onto page 2,3,4 etc. So I would say each category page is unique.
This isn't what I wanted, I've left it for so long (over a year). It's ever since google introduced that parameter thing, I used to have parameters in the urls but I've fixed that along time ago to .html pages.
Yes the pages on category page 2,3,4 etc used to rank before, but now the 2nd and subsequent pages aren't in the index. In fact if you google the 2nd, third or 4th category pages it brings up the first category page.
thanks
-
Hey,
So you've set it up so that only your first category page will be indexed as it basically saying all the other pages (pg 2, 3 etc) are the same/maybe slightly different.
Is this what you wanted? Also, did those pg 2 and so on rank before you implemented the canonical tag?
DD
-
Hi
on each subsequent category page it refers to the first category page
eg
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
etc
thanks
-
Hmm... let me clarify this you say:
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
what about the each subsequent page (... | 2 | 3 | 4... ) what is their canonical value?
-
Hi
So should I revert to the non canonical page structure and leave it natural?
I also forgot to mention that on the homepage I have a box of recent image links that will also appear on the each of category pages. I don't know if google sees these as duplicate links.
thanks
-
I have noticed exactly the same behavior by Google. They're trying to promote the end page, not the category - even when this is not useful (I think they have a bit of work to do still). If this was my site through I would not tamper with the natural structure of the site but feature key products and pages from pages higher up in the site's hierarchy.
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
-
How many links to the same page can there be for each page?
I need to know if I can add more than 2 equal links on the same page, for example 1 link in the header, another in the body and one in the footer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jorgesep0 -
Google Panda question Category Pages on e-commerce site
Dear Mates, Could you check this category page of our e-commerce site: http://tinyurl.com/zqjalng and give me your opinion about, this is a Panda safe page or not? Actually I have this as NOINDEX preventing any Panda hit, but I'm in doubt. My Question is "Can I index this page again in peace?" Thank you Clay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClayRey0 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
My home page is not found by the "Grade a Page" tool
My home page as well as several important pages are not found by the Grade a Page tool. With our full https address I got this http://screencast.com/t/s1gESMlGwpa With just the www address I got this http://screencast.com/t/BMRHy36Ih https://www.joomlashack.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | etabush
https://www.joomlashack.com/joomla-templates We recently lost a lot of positions for our most important keyword: Joomla Templates Please help us figure this out. Whats screwy with our site?0 -
Ecommerce: remove duplicate product pages or use rel=canonical
Say we have a white-widget that is in our white widget collection and also in our wedding widget collection. Currently, we have 3 different URLs for that product (white-widgets/white-widget and wedding-widgets/white-widget and all-widgets/white-widget).We are automatically generating a rel=canonical tag for those individual collection product pages that canonical the original product page (/all-widgets/white-widget). This guide says that is the structure Zappos uses and says "There is an elegance to this approach. However, I would re-visit it today in light of changes in the SEO world."
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | birchlore
I noticed that Zappos, and many other shops now actually just link back to the parent product page (e.g. If I am in wedding widget section and click on the widget, I go to all-products/white-widget instead of wedding-widgets/white-widget).So my question is:Should we even have these individual product URLs or just get rid of them altogether? My original thought was that it would help SEO for search term "white wedding widget" to have a product URL wedding-widget/white-widget but we won't even be taking advantage of that by using rel=canonical anyway.0 -
How to properly link to products from category pages?
Hi All, We have an e-commerce website and the category pages are built so that there is a product image and below it there is the title. Both the image and the title are in a href (each on its own). I encountered the following unfinished discussion here at MOZ:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-optimize-achor-text-links-on-ecommerce-category-page#post-93758 The discussion states that its improper. The question is - if it is wrong then why? (maybe because Google will give its weight to the image anchor instead of the text anchor since it is higher in the page). The other question is how to resolve the matter?
Should I add nofollow to the image href? Thanks0 -
Removing Canonical Links
We implemented rel=canonical as we decided to paginate our pages. We then ran some testing and on the whole pagination did not work out so we removed all on-page pagination. Now, internally when I click for example a link for Widgets I get the /widgets.php but searching through Google I get to /widgets.php?page=all . There are not redirects in place at the moment. The '?page=all' page has been rated 'A' by the SEOmoz tool under On Page Optimization reports and performs much better than the exact same page without the '?page=all' (the score dips to a 'D' grade) so need to tread carefully so we don't lose the link value. Can anyone advise us on the best way forward? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
Where to point Rel = Canonical?
I have a client who is using the rel=canonical tag across their e-commerce site. Here is an example of how it is set up. URLs 1. http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.do?nType=22. http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.doThe canonical tag points to the second URL. Both pages are indexed by Google.The first page has a higher page authority (most of the internal site links go to the first URL) than the second one. Should the page with the highest authority be the one that the canonical tag points to? Is there a better way to handle these situations? Does any authority get passed through the tag?Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0