Canonical URL Tag Usage
-
Hi there,
I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page?
Kind Regards
-
I will do Hannah, thanks again.
-
Hey,
Re the rel-canonical, Bing say they don't like that implementation, but Google are fine with it. My advice? Yep - do it
Thanks
Hannah
PS If you want to ask a new question it's best to start a new thread - more likely to get seen & answered
-
Hi Hannah,
Just one more question please.
If I had just one website, would you always advice in using a canonical tag for every webpage on that site?
So, http://www.example.com/product-page/ would have canonical tag
rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product-page/" />
-
Thanks Hannah for all your help, I will let you know how it goes.
Kind Regards
-
Yep - you need to place the tags on every page which is duplicated across both sites
-
AH! at the moment I only have one hreflang on each domain
.co.uk website has:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-IE" href="http://www.mywebsite.ie" />
and .ie website has:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="http://www.mywebsite.co.uk" />
Was I doing it wrong to start with?
-
Like the rel="alternate" tag you need to put the canonical tag on every page of your .ie site pointing to the relevant page on your .co.uk site. You should also put the canonical tag on the .co.uk site pointing to itself - e.g.:
So on http://yourdomain.co.uk/page-whatever you'd need:
http://yourdomain.ie/page-whatever; />
http://yourdomain.ie/page-whatever - you'd need:
-
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for your feedback.
This is very interesting indeed Hannah, so this means that the .ie version will fall away in SERPs?
Technical question: Do I put the canonical tag on the .ie website pointing to the .co.uk website?
rel="canonical" href="http://www.mywebsite.co.uk"/>
Do I put a canonical tag on the .co.uk website?
Appreciate your help.
-
Hi Gary,
I think on this occasion you ought to use both rel="alternate" and the canonical tag.
One of my colleagues had a conversation with a Googler which supports and explains this further:
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Yes, everything is correct in Google webmaster tools. I have a feeling even though this is correct in webmaster tools that Google is counting as duplicate.
-
What are Google Webmaster Tools telling you? Have you used it to tell Google your site is geotargeted?
-
Hi Highland,
Thanks for your reply.
Do you know what is happening with this then? as it has no PR anymore plus it's not in the index
-
In this case, no. Matt Cutts has stated that country TLDs that are duplicate are not generally seen as duplicate by Google.
-
Hi Stefan,
Yes, in Google webmaster tools that countries are set, however one of the keywords I was ranking well for has disappeared from the .co.uk results, when I paste the first paragraph of the .co.uk page in question into .co.uk, its the .ie website that appears, I have also put this on the .co.uk & .ie webpages in question:
rel="alternate" hreflang="en-IE" href="mysite.ie" />
<link < span="">rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="mysite.co.uk" /></link <>
I put the above code about 10 days ago, but still not sorted the problem, I feel that I need to tell Google that the .co.uk website is the original, what do you think?
-
Hello Gary,
You can use the
hreflang="'en-IE" href="www.your-ie.site"> element
For more information see: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
You can also in Google webmaster tools set the country a specific domain is targeting.
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
-
Why a certain URL ( a category URL ) disappears?
the page hasn't been spammed. - links are natural - onpage grader is perfect - there are useful high ranking articles linking to the page...pretty much everything is okay.....also all of my websites pages are okay and none of them has disappeared only this one ( the most important category of my site. )
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mohamadalieskandariii0 -
Quickview product modal - should I add rel=canonical to each URL ?
I have a quick view modal for all products on my website. How should I deal with these in the page set up eg. should I rel=canonical to the full product page and no-index in robots txt or are they ok in Googles eyes as they are part of the UX ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
Can multiple geotargeting hreflang tags be set in one URL? International SEO question
Hi All, I have a question please. If i target www.onedirect.co.nl/en/ in English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, are the tags below correct? English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg: http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-be" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-lu" /> AND Targeting Holland and Belgium in Dutch: Pour la page www.onedirect.co.nl on peut inclure ce tag: http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-be" /> thanks a lot for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onedirect_uk0 -
Duplicate Content with URL Parameters
Moz is picking up a large quantity of duplicate content, consists mainly of URL parameters like ,pricehigh & ,pricelow etc (for page sorting). Google has indexed a large number of the pages (not sure how many), not sure how many of them are ranking for search terms we need. I have added the parameters into Google Webmaster tools And set to 'let google decide', However Google still sees it as duplicate content. Is it a problem that we need to address? Or could it do more harm than good in trying to fix it? Has anyone had any experience? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Using Canonical Attribute
Hi All, I am hoping you can help me? We have recently migrated to the Umbraco CMS and now have duplicate versions of the same page showing on different URLs. My understanding is that this is one of the major reasons for the rel=canonical tag. So am I right in saying that if I add the following to the page that I want to rank then this will work? I'm just a little worried as I have read some horror stories of people implementing this attribute incorrectly and getting into trouble. Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Creditsafe0 -
Affiliate & canonicals
Hi, any help with this one would be great.... www.example.com sells widgets online. They are also promoted on a 3rd party website www.partner.com. Currently www.partner.com links to a page on www.example.com that is completely branded with the 'partners' design, style and unique copy (you would think you were still on 'partner' website). I saw this interesting article from 2011: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-seo-value-from-your-affiliate-links (in particular idea 1) Do you think adding a rel=canonical on www.example.com's partner page is still safe? All the best & thank you, Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Richard5550 -
Anchor Text Usage
Hi, I have used anchor text more heavily. I built over 80 links so far, all are quality links like press releases & social bookmarks. I used to be ranking on #7 page for my keywords, then all of sudden i am not even on 50th page. Is this is because of Anchor text usage? Now should i remove those links or dilute my anchor texts by getting more links with different anchor texts. This is because the keyword i am targetting is pretty tough. So i think 80 links is not good enough. Let me know your thoughts. Here is the screenshot of the links i got so far which i think valuable. And the rest are social bookmarks. http://screencast.com/t/TJiDOanxnfZ
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vegitt0 -
Multilingual sites: Canonical and Alternate tag implementation question
Hello, I would like some clarification about the correct implementation of the rel="alternate" tag and the canonical tag. The example given at http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077 recommends implementing the canonical tag on all region specific sub-domains, and have it point to the www version of the website Here's the example given by Google. My question is the following. Would this technique also apply if I have region specific sites site local TLD. In other words, if I have www.example.com, www.example.co.uk, www.example.ca – all with the same content in English, but prices and delivery options tailored for US, UK and Canada residents, should I go ahead and implement the canonical tag and alternate tag as follows: I am a bit concerned about canonicalizing an entire local TLD to the .com site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Amiee0