Will I still get Duplicate Meta Data Errors with the correct use of the rel="next" and rel="prev" tags?
-
Hi Guys,
One of our sites has an extensive number category page lsitings, so we implemented the rel="next" and rel="prev" tags for these pages (as suggested by Google below), However, we still see duplicate meta data errors in SEOMoz crawl reports and also in Google webmaster tools. Does the SEOMoz crawl tool test for the correct use of rel="next" and "prev" tags and not list meta data errors, if the tags are correctly implemented?
Or, is it necessary to still use unique meta titles and meta descriptions on every page, even though we are using the rel="next" and "prev" tags, as recommended by Google?
Thanks, George
Implementing rel=”next” and rel=”prev”
If you prefer option 3 (above) for your site, let’s get started! Let’s say you have content paginated into the URLs:
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=1
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=3
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=4On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=1, you’d include in the section:
On the second page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2:
On the third page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=3:
And on the last page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=4:
A few points to mention:
-
The first page only contains rel=”next” and no rel=”prev” markup.
-
Pages two to the second-to-last page should be doubly-linked with both rel=”next” and rel=”prev” markup.
-
The last page only contains markup for rel=”prev”, not rel=”next”.
-
rel=”next” and rel=”prev” values can be either relative or absolute URLs (as allowed by the tag). And, if you include a
<base>
link in your document, relative paths will resolve according to the base URL. -
rel=”next” and rel=”prev” only need to be declared within the section, not within the document .
-
We allow rel=”previous” as a syntactic variant of rel=”prev” links.
-
rel="next" and rel="previous" on the one hand and rel="canonical" on the other constitute independent concepts. Both declarations can be included in the same page. For example, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2&sessionid=123 may contain:
-
rel=”prev” and rel=”next” act as hints to Google, not absolute directives.
-
When implemented incorrectly, such as omitting an expected rel="prev" or rel="next" designation in the series, we'll continue to index the page(s), and rely on our own heuristics to understand your content.
-
-
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-about-pagination-with-relnext-and.html
3. While it’s fine to set rel=”canonical” from a component URL to a single view-all page, setting the canonical to the first page of a parameter-less sequence is considered improper usage. We make no promises to honor this implementation of rel=”canonical.”
-
Dear Irving,
Im very interested in your concept could you explain in depth or give me any source or link where to learn about.
Because canonical from my point of view is a controversial thing.
I'll appreciate your help
Claudio
-
Google no longer recommends setting up pagination pages with canonical tags. The rel tags are the way to go...
-
Dear George,
In the past I was dealing with the same issue, to solve it I implement these 2 fix :
1. Canonical tag ie.:
rel="canonical" href="http://www.yourdomain.com/your-page.asp">
This tell the Search engines specially google the page is the referred as canonical
http://www.yourdomain.com/your-page.asp
http://www.yourdomain.com/your-page.asp?page=1
http://www.yourdomain.com/your-page.asp?page=2
from google perspective these pages are http://www.yourdomain.com/your-page.asp (canonical)
2. On each page I add (dynamically) Page # on both title and description meta tags
<title></span><span>Your page title - Page: 1</span><span></title>
name="description" content="Your page Description meta tag etc etc - Page: 1">
This resolve the problem on both, HTML issues in Google WMT and the rank flow because you're joining all pages into the root page.
Hope this hepl
Claudio
-
You will still need unique title and meta tags to avoid duplication. It's in the W3.org spec: Anything unique will work, so you can start the title and meta description tag on page 2 with the words "Page 2: "
<a name="h-12.1.2">12.1.2</a> <a name="idx-link-2">Other link relationships</a>
By far the most common use of a link is to retrieve another Web resource, as illustrated in the previous examples. However, authors may insert links in their documents that express other relationships between resources than simply "activate this link to visit that related resource". Links that express other types of relationships have one or more link types specified in their source anchor.
The roles of a link defined by <samp class="einst">A</samp> or <samp class="einst">LINK</samp> are specified via the <samp class="ainst">rel</samp> and <samp class="ainst">rev</samp> attributes.
For instance, links defined by the <samp class="einst">LINK</samp> element may describe the position of a document within a series of documents. In the following excerpt, links within the document entitled "Chapter 5" point to the previous and next chapters:
_...other head information..._ <title>Chapter 5</title>
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
-
Multi-domain content and meta data feed
Hi, I am working with a client whose web developer has offered to build a CMS that auto-feeds meta-data and product descriptions (on-page content) to two different websites which have two completely different URL's (primary domain names) associated with them. Please see screenshots attached for examples. The entire reason this has been offered is to avoid duplicate content issues. The client has two E-Commerce websites but only one content management system that can update both simultaneously. The work-around shown in the screenshots is the developers attempt at ensuring that both sites have unique meta data and on-page content associated with each product. Can anyone advise whether they foresee that this may cause any issues from an SEO perspective. Thanks in advance wM3ngsj.png KtBun98.png
Technical SEO | | SteveK640 -
Do I need both canonical meta tags AND 301 redirects?
I implemented a 301 redirect set to the "www" version in the .htaccess (apache server) file and my logs are DOWN 30-40%! I have to be doing something wrong! AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .htm RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^luckygemstones.com
Technical SEO | | spkcp111
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.luckygemstones.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.htm
RewriteRule ^(.)index.htm$ http://www.luckygemstones.com/$1 [R=301,L] IndexIgnore *
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.luckygemstones.com/page-not-found.htm
ErrorDocument 500 http://www.luckygemstones.com/internal-serv-error.htm
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.luckygemstones.com/forbidden-request.htm
ErrorDocument 401 http://www.luckygemstones.com/not-authorized.htm I've also started adding canoncial META's to EACH page: I'm using HMTL 4.0 loose still--1000's of pages--painful to convert to HTML5 so I left the / off the tag so it would validate. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks, Kathleen0 -
Canonical & rel=prev / next changes to website a good idea or not?
Hi all, I decided yesterday to make a load of changes to my website, and today i woke thinking, should i have done that! So below is an example of what i have done (i will try to explain clearly anyway), can you let me know if you think what i have done would harm or help my website in search results etc... ok, so lets take just one category - Cameras And it has the sub categories - box dome bullet it also has other sub categories (which are actually features, but the only way i can show them on my site is by having them as a sub-category with its own static page, and adding the products to these as secondary categories) vandal proof high resolution night vision previously i have it set up so that every single category / sub category / feature had its own static page, with a canonical tag to itself (i.e cameras.html canonical was to cameras.html, vandalproof.html canonical was to vandalproof.html). Any of the categories / sub cats / features that had more than one page were simply not in search results due to the canonical pointing to "Page 1"... What i have now done: Last night i decided to change all this, now for all categories / sub cats / features i have add rel=prev / next where applicable, and removed the canonical from second / third / fourth pages etc, but left the canonical on "page 1". I also removed any keywords from page 2,3,4 etc and changed descriptions to just page "X" + category name. So for example, page one looks like: and page two looks like: I also went a little further (maybe too far) and decided that the features pages would canonicalize back to cameras so for those i now have: Page 1: Page 2: Any advice is welcome on the above, in regards to which way may be better and why, and obviously if anything jumps out as a mistake... Please advise James
Technical SEO | | isntworkdull0 -
Why am I getting rel= canonical?
I'm getting 14 rel=canonical tags on my site. Could someone offer me an insight as to this is happening? http://cool-invent.com Thanks, Lorraine
Technical SEO | | coolinvent0 -
Rel="author" showing old image
I'm using http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets to test my rel="author" tag which was successful, but I noticed I wanted to change my image in Google+ as it is not what I want. I changed my image in Google+, it's been over 14 hours now and still not showing the new picture using the RichSnippets tool. I know Google can take a couple weeks at least to show changes in search results, but this RichSnippet tool I thought was immeidate. Am I missing something here or am I just impatient? I want my new photo to show.
Technical SEO | | Twinbytes0 -
Why won't the Moz plug in "Analyze Page" tool read data on a Big Commerce site?
We love our new Big Commerce site, just curious as to what the hang up is.
Technical SEO | | spalmer0 -
Meta data in includes: not ideal or a problem?
I have pages with meta data being pulled in via an include. This was to prevent people from touching the pages themselves. Is this an optimization issue- or is it OK to do?
Technical SEO | | Tribeca-Marketing-Group0 -
Should i use NoIndex, Follow & Rel=Canonical Tag In One Page?
I am having pagination problem with one of my clients site , So I am deciding to use noindex, follow tag for the Page 2,3,4 etc for not to have duplicated content issue, Because obviously SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostics showing me lot of duplicate page contents. And past 2 days i was in constant battle whether to use noindex, follow tag or rel=canonical tag for the Page 2,3,4 and after going through all the Q&A,None of them gives me crystal clear answer. So i thought "Why can't i use 2 of them together in one page"? Because I think (correct me if i am wrong) 1.noindex, follow is old and traditional way to battle with dup contents
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle
2.rel=canonical is new way to battle with dup contents Reason to use 2 of them together is: Bot finds to the non-canonical page first and looks at the tag nofollow,index and he knows not to index that page,meantime he finds out that canonical url is something something according to the url given in the tag,NO? Help Please???0