Implementing rel=canonical in a CMS
-
Hi Guys,
We have an issue with duplicate content caused by dynamic URLs, so want to implement rel=canonical. However this isn't easy due to the way out CMS works.
These were pulled from SEOMoz scan:
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1&perpage=10&sales_group=NULL&filter_colour=&filter_size=&sortby=RELEV&inStock=NO&resfilter=
and are obviously the same page. As far as I can see I have two options.1. To implement the canonical meta tag only on page 1.
2. To implement the canonical tag so that I add ?page=X
so
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463
would be
http://www.transair.co.uk/pp+Aerobatics-Training+463?page=1Will this work?
Thanks
Rob
-
Ideally, you'd fix the crawl path, but that may be tricky (unless they've patched the CMS). You could add the canonical to just the "page=1" version, but admittedly that's a bit code-intensive.
An alternate idea - that is fairly Google-friendly. You could add a "View All" version and then point the canonical on all search pages to that version. Especially since all is only 2 pages, that could work well in your case and you wouldn't have to worry about all the variants or search results not getting crawled.
-
Still I would advice to talk to Sanderson first, because maybe they have met the same issue on several clients.And have developed something to resolve it.
Webmaster tools can be helpful too just as Bede said.
-
Hi Istvan,
Thanks for your comments. I have contacted Sanderson but as @Bede suggests, I might try and do this in webmaster tools
-
Hi Bede,
I did think about that a while back, the issue is that we are an ecommerce site, so I don't want to run the risk of excluding page 2,3,4 etc from being crawled. However, I think you might be right - this may have to be the way forward. Currently we have 3165 products and 9495 pages of duplicate content, so it is something I need to get fixed.
Thanks, Rob
-
Just throwing this out there, but, could rel=canonical be augmented or assisted in this case by URL parameters in webmaster tools?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1235687
-
@Nicolai: maybe this could be a solution: http://drupal.org/project/nodewords
@Rob: I am searching for a solution. Did you try contacting http://www.sanderson.com regarding this issue?
-
Hi Istvan,
Thank you very much - take your time It's deeply appreciated.
-
Hi Nicolai,
More than possible in the evening I will have more time to check things. I will look for both Drupal and Elucid solutions.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Hi Rob / Istvan,
@ Rob, I hope you don't mind that I "steal" your thread, that's not my intention. I have what seems to be the exact same problem as you (as described in this threat), and I can't seem to find a solution for it.
@Istvan - my CMS is Drupal, and I guess I have the exact same problem as Rob(?).
Again guys: Apologies for staling this thread, I hope it's ok. I just saw it and was very happy to find not only the question written by Rob, but also someone who seems to have an idea of what to do about it.
Thanks in advance, and good day both of you.
Nicolai
-
Hi Rob,
I will check and get back to you in a few hours.
Hopefully we'll find something for you
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Hi Istvan,
It is a system called Elucid from Sanderson. It is basically a multi-channel platform. The problem content all run off the same template, which is the issue.
Thanks
-
Hi Rob,
What CMS are you using? Maybe we could link a few very good plugins which will help you out with this situation.
Gr.,
Istvan
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
-
Meta Robots index & noindex Both Implemented on Website
I don't want few of the pages of website to get indexed by Google, thus I have implemented meta robots noindex code on those specific pages. Due to some complications I am not able to remove meta robots index from header of every page Now, on specific pages I have both codes 'index & noindex' implemented. Question is: Will Google crawl/index pages which have noindex code along with index code? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Exa0 -
Using Canonical Tags on Every Page
I'm doing competitive research and noticed that one of our competitors (who outranks us) uses canonical tags on every page on their site. The canonical tags reference the page they are on. For example. www.competitor.com/product has a canonical tag of www.competitor.com/product. Does anyone use this practice? It seems strange to me. Thank you, Kristen
On-Page Optimization | | Ksink0 -
I'm using Canonical URL but still receiving message - Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Hello, I checked my site and it looks like everything is setup correctly for canonical url but I keep getting the message that it's not. Am I doing something wrong? SORRY I FIGURED IT OUT! THANK YOU! HOW DO I DELETE THIS?
On-Page Optimization | | seohlp440 -
E commerce Website canonical and duplicate content isssue
i have a ecomerce site , i am just wondering if any one could help me answer this the more info page can be access will google consider it as duplicate and if it does then how to best use the canonical tag http://domain.com/product-page http://domain.com/product-page/ http://domain.com/product-Page http://domain.com/product-Page/ also in zencart when link product it create duplicate page content how to tackle it? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics0 -
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 -
Blogs & CMS setup and integration
Hi Guys, I'm quite new to all things website wise. I understand the 'basics' of SEO (i think) and i'm alright with html but my experience stops there. Since i signed up to SEOMOZ, i've realised the importance of SEO and therefore our company has now employed 'an expert' to help us to go forward who happens to work for our web hosting company. Throughout the discussions, they strongly emphasised the importance of blogging and having a proper blog setup on our site and so we went along with the suggestion along with the SEO. Before we began, i went away and redesigned our site updating a lot of the content, the layout etc to basically give them a much better starting point because ultimately it would only benefit us. They have just started the work this month and to say i'm underwhelmed is an understatement!! With regards to the blog, as i didn't know what they were planning to do, i created three links at the bottom of our pages which looked like blog posts, a general blog page, and some blog posts which are all simple html pages. I assumed that they would then go away and create the blog thereselves and then obviously add it to our site. They have just come back now and said to me that as our site doesn't have a CMS, they will have to forward me the weekly posts and i will have to add them to the site myself and post them to our facebook and twitter pages. I am not particularly impressed with this as this is what we have paid just over £800 for which supposedly included them setting it up and managing it and did not include the SEO which is a lot of money for a small company as ourselves. What i wanted to know is that from our site as it stands now: http://www.customdesignedcable.co.uk, would it be difficult to include some sort of blog system that would integrate into our pages on the footer and the blog page or would i have to redesign the site through something such as joomla? I have never used joomla and i've only just found out that it exists. I'm asking on this forum as all of you guys know what your talking about and before i go back to them all guns blazing tomorrow, it would be great to be 'well up' on how difficult it would be and what the easiest ways would be to do it just to give me some ammo because i think they are talking out of there backsides! Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!! Big Thanks Guys!! I look forward to hearing from you. Chris.
On-Page Optimization | | Chris_CDC0 -
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing?
Are To Many Rel Canonical Links A Bad Thing? I had "twin" domains so I redirected my .com to www..com and now I have a lot of Rel Canonical Links.
On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean0 -
Rel Canonical
I will be quick and to the point. I am clearly a novice. I received a notice on my seomoz account that I had 12 pages with a Rel Canonical issue. It seems serious. Can this be a quick fix? Any thoughts? Below is the site address. petbarnpdx.com Thanks in advance for any input on this! Dave
On-Page Optimization | | APICDA0