How accurate and quick does Google pick up on canonical tags?
-
Hey Peeps!
I was just wondering what your experiences are in how fast Google will pick up on canonical tags and how often they use the 'strong hint' in stead of leaving it be?
I'm based in The Netherlands and for websites with a decent amount of content and links (where Google indexes new content quickly) they pick up on it within 1-2 weeks.
So far they've ignored some canonical tags on one of my websites. Perhaps that's because they don't agree with the degree in which the pages are similar.
Thanks in advance!
-
Oh yes... a touch larger than 10k. Big touch too
Some we've been able to 301, however it is mostly a faceted search issues on the site we are working on - so those pages need to stay live to users.
-
Thanks for your response Mat! How big is a big site in your case? 10.000+ pages?
Is there any way you could use 301-redirects instead of canonical tags? Honestly, when I get the chance to use a 301-redirect (when the page I'm trying to de-indexed is not usefull for a user) I choose to use a 301-redirect.
-
Honestly Billy, I do not remember precisely. I noticed it like 4 weeks back. I think it was something like a WordPress category page which was created some DC. When I do remember or when I see it again I'll let you know!
-
It can be slow - particularly on a big site that is crawled slowly. We've got an over-sized site thanks to some iffy CMS logic that we are trying to get Google to follow canonical instructions on. It's happening slowly, but is taking months.
-
Would you care to share those pages? This is not an issue I have ever had and you have sparked my curiosity.
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
-
Homepage has canonical tag pointing to innerpage
Hi, I'm stuck! This e-commerce site which I'm currently working on has an unusual problem. So the homepage has a canonical tag pointing to one of its category pages. Is this okay SEO-wise? Based on what I understand, the homepage is the most important page in a site. And if there is a mirror duplication, it would be better to canonicalise the inner page to the homepage rather than in reverse. Looking forward to getting some answers. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nerdieb0 -
Google Ignoring Canonical Tag for Hundreds of Sites
Bazaar Voice provides a pretty easy-to-use product review solution for websites (especially sites on Magento): https://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/bazaarvoice-conversations-1.html If your product has over a certain number of reviews/questions, the plugin cuts off the number of reviews/questions that appear on the page. To see the reviews/questions that are cut off, you have to click the plugin's next or back function. The next/back buttons' URLs have a parameter of "bvstate....." I have noticed Google is indexing this "bvstate..." URL for hundreds of sites, even with the proper rel canonical tag in place. Here is an example with Microsoft: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zcxT7MRHHREJ:www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-Book/productID.325716000%3Fbvstate%3Dpg:8/ct:r+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us My website is seeing hundreds of these "bvstate" urls being indexed even though we have a proper rel canonical tag in place. It seems that Google is ignoring the canonical tag. In Webmaster Console, the main source of my duplicate titles/metas in the HTML improvements section is the "bvstate" URLs. I don't necessarily want to block "bvstate" in the robots.txt as it will prohibit Google from seeing the reviews that were cutoff. Same response for prohibiting Google from crawling "bvstate" in Paramters section of Webmaster Console. Should I just keep my fingers crossed that Google honors the rel canonical tag? Home Depot is another site that has this same issue: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k0MBLFcu2PoJ:www.homedepot.com/p/DUROCK-Next-Gen-1-2-in-x-3-ft-x-5-ft-Cement-Board-172965/202263276%23!bvstate%3Dct:r/pg:2/st:p/id:202263276+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | redgatst1 -
Organic Listings showing Google Tag Manager + Google Page Title...?
I'm a bit stumped with this. I optimise all my titles etc for Australia - and now the organic liatings are showing something strange. For example ( we sell health supplements ) Meta title = "My Product , Buy Online Australia" If I type "My Product" - the title in the organic listings says "My Product - My Company Limited" - and the only place I can see it getting that from is a combination of Meta Data used in Google Tag Manager + the Name on my Google places page. This is much more obvious for categories.. but it's a pain in the butt. If I type "My Product Australia" Then the original "My Product , Buy Online Australia" comes up. Any ideas on policy etc? I have taken the "Limited" off the Google business page - so hopefully this will change over time - but I can't find any information on why google would do something like this. If you had shed any light on this - would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Rel=canonical
My website is built around a template, the hosting site say I can only add code into the body of the webpage not the header, will this be ok for rel=canonical If it is my next question is redundant but as there is only one place to put it which urls do I need to place in the code http://domain.com, www.domain.com or http://www.domain.com the /default.asp option for my website does not seem to exist, so I guess is not relevant thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | singingtelegramsuk0 -
Google search results
I have been doing some searches on google to see where my new site shows up, I started using the search words "graphic design firm st. louis" as a gauge, because my title is St. Louis Missouri Graphic Design Firm. I showed up on about page 5 to start , if I include the word "firm" and a few pages further back if I just search "graphic design st. louis", without the word firm. It seemed i was slowly moving up pages with both searches and then a few days ago I jumped to page 1 for search "graphic design firm st. louis" the thing is it doesnt show up at all now if i search "graphic design st. louis" without the word firm. what would cause the one search to jump so high while the other one dissapeared completely?? and what can i do? my keyword density is same for both , any ideas.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eric69660 -
Use of the Canonical Tag, Both Internally and Cross Domain
I've seen the cross domain canonical not work at all in my test cases. And an interesting point was brought to my attention today. That point was that in order for the canonical tag to work, the page that you are referencing needs to have the exact same content. And that this was the whole point of the canonical tag, not for it to be used as a 301 but for it to consolidate pages with the same content. I want to know if this is true. Does the page you reference with a canonical tag have to have the same exact content? And what have been your experiences with using the canonical tag referencing another page on a different domain that has the same exact subject matter but not the exact duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GearyLSF372 -
Google, Links and Javascript
So today I was taking a look at http://www.seomoz.org/top500 page and saw that the AddThis page is currently at the position 19. I think the main reason for that is because their plugin create, through javascript, linkbacks to their page where their share buttons reside. So any page with AddThis installed would easily have 4/5 linbacks to their site, creating that huge amount of linkbacks they have. Ok, that pretty much shows that Google doesn´t care if the link is created in the HTML (on the backend) or through Javascript (frontend). But heres the catch. If someones create a free plugin for wordpress/drupal or any other huge cms platform out there with a feature that linkbacks to the page of the creator of the plugin (thats pretty common, I know) but instead of inserting the link in the plugin source code they put it somewhere else, wich then is loaded with a javascript code (exactly how AddThis works). This would allow the owner of the plugin to change the link showed at anytime he wants. The main reason for that would be, dont know, an URL address update for his blog or businness or something. However that could easily be used to link to whatever tha hell the owner of the plugin wants to. What your thoughts about this, I think this could be easily classified as White or Black hat depending on what the owners do. However, would google think the same way about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bemcapaz0