Rel Canonical tag usage on ECommerce website
-
Hello,
I have read up on the rel canonical tag and I'm ready to apply it to my site's categorization structure.
However, I'm concerned that, because my website does not have a "view all" button for our product pages, the rel canonical tag would not be appropriate.
For example, if you come to my site's main category url, you come to
At this level - you get the top 12 items in the category.
if you want to see the next page, you click a crawlable link that goes to
etc. etc.
The site does not offer a view all function.
Would applying the rel canonical tag be appropriate in this instance, or do I have to let Google crawl and index each page independantly?
Thanks.
-
Thanks! I understand what you're saying and I agree...this is exactly the method that our CMS generates these pages. The crawlable, additional pages are unique and should be crawled. This being said, from a search engine's perspective, the obvious "canonicalized" page should be the main category. I believe the robots, no index/follow is the best option for me - though I'm not exactly sure how to implement it with our CMS system..
Thanks.
-
Thanks!
Hadn't considered the robots tag like this. Unfortunately, our site's CMS system will make either of these options tough to actually implement. But it's great to know there're some options.
-
Technically, rel=prev/next is more appropriate, but it can be really tough to implement and Bing doesn't honor it.
If the paginated search pages don't have inbound links, you could just use META NOINDEX,FOLLOW on them (pages 2, 3, etc.). It's a lot easier to implement and is still very effective.
-
**if you want to see the next page, you click a crawlable link that goes to **
**mysite.com/main-category12-24 **
**The site does not offer a view all function. **
Would applying the rel canonical tag be appropriate in this instance, or do I have to let Google crawl and index each page independantly?
In this example you actually are talking about 2 different pages and in which case it can be appropriate to use the rel canonical.
Example take a look at a popular plateform like Oscommerce.
The Index.php page generates the following pages
- index.php
- category pages
- sub category pages
These are referenced by the software by the cPath (category Path) and would look much like this
- index.php
- index.php&cPath=1
- index.php&cPath=1_5
To a search engine these are all unique pages. Additionally, since many e-commerce platforms follow this type of module but also have ways to make the pages more SEO friendly you can in some cases access the same page via different URL's which is of course bad, due to duplicate content. In these case a rel canonical is very appropriate.
For example Oscommerce has a SEO friendly URL modification which turns the unspecific URL like index.php&cPath=1 into something like electronics.html However unless some sort of redirect is used you can actually access this page via either URL.
To simplify the answer the rel canonical tag is most appropriate for pages that generate dynamic URL's but content changes very little. In my examples above the pages are very different index.php and a index.php&cPath=1 page, however there can be times when you have interactions on those pages which would create a new url like say adding a product to the cart or a product selection filter, or any score of interactions that may change the url from index.php&cPath=1 to index.php&cPath=1&addToCart1&Product_ID=414&return in this case rel canonical would be very much appropriate as the page is not really changing you're just executing an action.
-
Here's an article from Google webmaster central with instructions on how to impliment it.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
And a quick example of implimentation by Yoast for 'Page 2' of results.
http://yoast.com/rel-next-prev-paginated-archives/
Just a quick note, on 'page 1' there should be no rel=prev (your mysite.com/main-category in this case) On on the final page there should be no rel=next. All other pages should have both.
Hope these help.
-
Wow, thanks alot I hadn't heard this was even available. Any chance you could give me a link to where I could find info. to implement?
Thanks again for your help, either way!
-
I'd impliment rel=rev and rel=next on the pages to imply that their paginated, with the first page mentioned being the first in the chain.
rel=canonical then should point to the actual url, not the view-all page.
I think that is the 'correct' implimention for paginated content since rel=prev and rel=next were introduced.
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
-
I'm doing a crawl analysis for a website and finding all these duplicate URLs with "null" being added to them and have no clue what could be causing this.
Does anyone know what could be causing this? Our dev team thinks it's caused by mobile pages they created a while ago but it is adding 1000's of additional URLs to the crawl report and being indexed by Google. They don't see it as a priority but I believe these could be very harmful to our site. examples from URL string:
Web Design | | julianne.amann
uruguay-argentina-chilenullnull/days
rainforests-volcanoes-wildlifenullnull/reviews
of-eastern-europenullnullnullnull/hotels0 -
Homepage Gateway for Website Divisions (Residential / Commercial) Bad for SEO?
When a website offers multiple divisions for products and services would it be a good SEO practice to implement something as Culligan does by having their homepage be a sort of gateway to the different divisions of site (home, office, commercial, industrial)? 2DaYz
Web Design | | m-johnson0 -
Do more links from sub-domains to domain (website) hurt rankings?
Hi all, If there are multiple sub-domains like abc.website.com, 123.website.com, etc...and if the top pages of website are linked from multiple sub-domains via top menu or footer links; will this hurts? Will too much interlinking of few top pages of a website from it's sub-domains dilute link juice? How many links ideally we can add to website from a sub-domain? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
ECWID Ecommerce Sitemaps (Lack of)
Does anyone know if the lack of sitemaps on ECWID built sites is a negative for SEO? Does Google somehow index these sites and do they penalize because sites can't include the urls in sitemaps? Also, any idea how to build a sitemap to include ECWID shopping carts?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Responsive design or mobile website for SEO
Because domains with a mobile version have better rankings in Google then domains with only a deskop version we're considering a mobile website. My web developer says that a m.domain.com is duplicated with the domain.com, and he recommends a responsive design. What is better for SEO positions in mobiles devices. A m.domain mobile website or a responsive design. What are influential factors?
Web Design | | remkoallertz0 -
Looking for a website review.
Hello, Our web team and I have been building a e-commerce website for the past couple of months. The project is nearing its end and I was just wondering if there are any big issues on this website that jump out at anyone, besides the fact that it hasn't been submitted anywhere or there has been no link building done yet. The website is wheelchairparts.com All feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated! Thanks!
Web Design | | Mike.Bean0 -
What is your mobile website strategy?
Do you have one where you deliver the same content to the desktop (rich user experience) as well as mobile websites? In our case we provide content to www.domain.com, m.domain.com (for smart phones not using our native apps) and mo.domain.com (for older feature phones). We found that in some instances Google favours the indexing of our mobile content over our desktop site and we have now started pointing canonical content to our desktop site (i.e. to www.domain.com). Possible downside is that Google might not present desktop indexed content on mobile devices. This is not really a big issue, as currently Google presents mobile content for desktop searches. A better approach would have been responsive design, but we feel that dedicated apps will rule the mobile device space and desktop-websites will evolve to allow content to be displayed on all devices (we consider our m.domain.com and mo.domain.com stop-gaps to overcome legacy device issues and bandwidth limitations). What is your mobile device strategy with regards to SEO?
Web Design | | MagicDude4Eva0 -
Bing free mobile website
When editing my Bing business listing, I have noticed that they offer a free mobile website. I was actually looking to build one and I'm not sure if this is what I'm looking for. I want to be able to customize it as well. Anybody tried it already? arBS3.jpg
Web Design | | echo10