Cross-Domain Canonical - Should I use it under the following circumstances?
-
I have a number of hyper local directories, where businesses get a page dedicated to them. They can add images and text, plus contact info, etc.
Some businesses list on more than one of these directory sites, but use exactly the same description.
I've tried asking businesses to use unique text when listing on more than one site to avoid duplication issues, but this is proving to be too much work for the business owner!
Can I use a cross-domain canonical and point Google towards the strongest domain from the group of directories?
What effects will this have? And is there an alternative way to deal with the duplicate content?
Thanks - I look forward to hearing your ideas!
-
It's always hard to talk in generalities about complex issues like this, but it sounds like a situation where cross-domain canonicals might make sense. I guess it really boils down to whether you're having issues with the duplicates and what the scope is (are there 3 of each or 300). In some cases, those duplicates just mean that one site will win, and Google will pick the winner. In other cases, the main site could actually be harmed by the duplicates. In some cases, honestly, multiple sites might rank fine. It really varies wildly.
The cross-domain canonicals would help prevent any kind of duplicate penalty (like being hit by Panda), but it would also mean that the non-canonical versions would no longer rank. So, you'd be protecting the strongest site for each listing, but possibly cutting off the smaller sites.
I haven't seen an implementation where different sites were canonical for different listings/articles/etc., at least not on large-scale, so that's a bit tougher to predict. If you have sites A-Z, and A is canonical for one listing, B for another, C for another, etc., that could get a bit tricky. I know large organizations, like newspapers, who syndicate content, have had good results in many cases with cross-domain canonical.
There is also a syndication-source tag, but that's really a weaker tag, and I haven't seen much data on it. The other option, traditionally, would be a solid link-back strategy (the non-canonical versions link to the canonical version). Unfortunately, at large scale, that could start to make you look like a link network, so I think that gets risky in this case.
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
-
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Canonicals being ignored
Hi, I've got a site that I'm working with that has 2 ways of viewing the same page - a property details page. Basically one version if the long version: /property/Edinburgh/Southside-Newington/6CN99V and the other just the short version with the code only on the end: /6cn99v There is a canonical in place from the short version to the long version, and the sitemap.xml only lists the long version HOWEVER - Google is indexing the short version in the majority of cases (not all but the majority). http://www.website.com/property/Edinburgh/Southside-Newington/6CN99V"> Obviously "www.website.com" contains the URL of the site itself. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | squarecat.ben0 -
Rel Canonical tag using Wordpress SEO plugin
Hi team I hope this is the right forum for asking this question. I have a site http://hurunuivillage.com built on Wordpress 3.5.1 using a child theme on Genesis 1.9. We're using Joost's Wordpress SEO plugin and I thought it was configured correctly but the Crawl Diagnostics report has identified an issue with the Rel Canonical tag on the sites pages. I have not edited the plugin settings so am surprised the SEOMoz Crawl has picked up a problem. Example: Page URL is http://hurunuivillage.com/ Tag Value http://hurunuivillage.com/ (exactly the same) Page Authority 39 Linking Root Domains 23 Source Code Considering the popularity of the plugin I'm surprised I have not been able to find tutorials to find what I'm doing wrong or should be doing better. Thanks in advance. Best Nic
Technical SEO | | NicDale0 -
Domain Hosting
I'm currently working with a client who provides products in Ireland Is it massively beneficial for the sited to be hosted on an irish server or will there not be much difference with it being hosted in England?
Technical SEO | | Sandeep_Matharu0 -
TLD domain rediversion
Hello, I have got a .co.uk version of my domain which is parked with godaddy and I want to divert it to the .com version which is the live site. At the moment the .co.uk version is showing a godaddy landing page. My setup is: Godaddy as domain registrar, domain.com host separate hosting company. I looked into godaddy panel and I guess I have two options. (which I have done as a quick fix), I have done the diversion within godaddy panel to the .com version. It simply asked for which domain I wanted to forward the .co.uk to, and I have entered the .com version. I can create the .co.uk domain within my shared hosting and repoint to the .com within the hosting company DNS settings, and have godaddy simply point to the hosting company nameservers instead. Are the two solutions above equivalent or is one better than others ? Esp. from an SEO point of view? If someone has technical expertise to explain, this would be great. I think it would also help other companies in the same situation. Thanks ! 🙂
Technical SEO | | dpaq20110 -
What is SEO impact of redirecting from domain to https appspot domain ?
Our site is hosted on google and is fully https. But since google's limitation is that all https needs to be on the appspot domain, we are redirecting users from our website to the appspot domain. What is the impact of this on SEO?
Technical SEO | | incandescent0 -
Top Level Domains
Howdy Everyone, I have a website that will span multiple countries. The content served will be different for each country. As such, I've acquired the top level domains for different countries. I want to map the cop level domains (e.g. domain.co.uk) to uk.domain.com for development purposes (LinkedIn does this). I'm curious to know whether this is adviseable and if mapping a country-specific TLD to a subdomain will maintain local SEO value. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | RADMKT-SEO0 -
Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
When using the On page report card I get a critical error on Rel Canonical Im not sure if I have understood this right but I think that my problem is that I own a Norwegian Domain name which is www.danske-båten.no This domain works great in norwegian, but I get problems with english (foreign) browsers. My english domain name is http://www.danske-båten.no. When you buy a domain name with the letter Å you get a non norwegian domain name as well. (dont quite get the tecnical aspect of it) Så when I publish a page (using wordpress if that means anything) I get this message: Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Canonical URL</dt> <dd>"http://www.danske-båten.no/ferge-oslo-københavn/"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd> <dd>So What to do to fix this?
Technical SEO | | stlastla
</dd> </dl>0