Is it a good idea to rel=canonical dozens of old outdated pages?
-
we have dozens old outdated manual pages that still need to be up, but have terrible code issues (they're exported from word) and no image tagging, etc.
there are new pages in place, so should i rel=canonical to the new pages? will this transfer any link juice to the newer, more seo-friendly ones?
-
If there are newer pages in place, and the newer pages cover the same topic, then yes you should canonical the older, outdated pages to the new pages. I would normally suggest to replace these older pages but you shared they "still need to be up" so the canonical tag would be the next best solution.
Using the canonical tag will allow most of the link juice from the older pages to flow to the newer pages.
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
-
Missing canonical tag error - office pages
Moz is throwing an error for our office pages (10 office pages in the format /office/location-1; /office/location-2 etc) but the content is different. How should we handle the canonical tag? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | AztekMedia0 -
Building a new page: What on-page SEO would you build in?
Hi all, Building a new page for a fairly competitive keyword. Need to make sure the on-page SEO is pretty top notch, because link building (including internal links) will be difficult. I've optimised the meta description, the alt tags and image names, and included the keyword in the Title Tags. Not a great deal I can do with regards to optimising for mobile or considering migrating to the AMP project because this is handled externally. What else would you suggest? Cheers in advance, Rhys
On-Page Optimization | | SwanseaMedicine1 -
Does having landing page text beneath the products at the base of the page hinder SEO?
I have a site that is capable of hosting the landing page description either above the products under the H1 or below them at the bottom of the page before the footer. I have always chosen to keep the text "above the fold" as presumably this would be crawled sooner in relation to the rest of the page content than had it been at the bottom. However, this means that I can only really write just a few sentences for each landing page - otherwise the products would shift further down the page - and I don't think this is good from a UX POV. Question: If I move the bulk of my landing page descriptions to the text snippet located underneath the products, could this negatively affect my SEO? Text at the bottom of the page is obviously not significant for users, so is there a chance this could be seen as spam?
On-Page Optimization | | Silkstream0 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
If I want to rank well on one keyword would it be better to optimize multiple pages on the website for the keyword or should I only optimize one page for that keyword?
If I want to rank well on one keyword would it be better to optimize multiple pages on the website for the keyword or should I only optimize one page for that keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | CustomOnlineMarketing0 -
Canonical URLs and SEO
After publishing my new wordpress website my on page analysis shows two canonical urls on my homepage. In checking the source code the Yoast SEO plugin states my canoncial url is www.homepage.ca/ This is the only one showing. Having said this I do not add the trailing slash to anything on my url structure. Could this be why the on page analysis tool says there are 2? If so is there any way to resolve this?
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
Does Too Many On-Page Links on a Page Really Matters?
Does Too Many On-Page Links on a Page Really Matters? Especially if they are pointing to internal page?
On-Page Optimization | | AppleCapitalGroup1 -
On Page Optimization Reports
How is it determined which terms and associated urls are chosen when SEOmoz tracks your On-Page Report Card? I'm receiving a lot of F Grades for terms I'm not really interested in and a lot of terms I'd like to be tracked aren't. Is there a way I can manually choose which terms and pages I'd like to be shown?
On-Page Optimization | | ClaytonKendall0