undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Two different canonical tags on one page

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Two different canonical tags on one page

Technical SEO
5
7
4.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • ShearingsGroup
    ShearingsGroup last edited by Aug 8, 2012, 12:13 PM

    Due to an error, some of my pages now have two canonical tags on them. One is correct and the other goes to a nonsense URL (404 page).

    I know I should ideally remove the incorrect ones, but it's a big manual job. Are they doing any harm? Can I just leave them there and let Google figure it out?

    The correct ones are higher up in the code. Will this make a difference?

    Any help appreciated.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Dr-Pete
      Dr-Pete Staff @KyleChamp last edited by Aug 10, 2012, 3:17 PM Aug 10, 2012, 3:17 PM

      Unfortunately, what Google can do and what they actually do can really vary. If you're mixing signals and doubling up the canonicals, the odds that they'll get it right are pretty low, in my experience. I think it's worth the fix, if these are traffic-generating pages.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Thos003
        Thos003 last edited by Aug 10, 2012, 3:16 PM Aug 8, 2012, 1:26 PM

        You should certainly fix this. You don't want google having to guess what you are trying to tell them. For the most part they will probably get it right, especially in your case with the 404s. But if this is occurring too frequently then they may begin to ignore your canonicals all together. Or worse, you may loose some google trust.

        I'd put this on my fix it list.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
        • ShearingsGroup
          ShearingsGroup @ScottJames13 last edited by Aug 8, 2012, 12:30 PM Aug 8, 2012, 12:30 PM

          Thanks Scott. It's only wrong on a few hundred pages and they're all quite deep. If it were wrong on the important pages I'd fix it.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ScottJames13
            ScottJames13 last edited by Aug 8, 2012, 12:29 PM Aug 8, 2012, 12:29 PM

            You should change it, I'm no canonical expert, but the whole point of having it is to tell google how you want it to show, ex. www.yoursite.com or yoursite.com. If your not going to change it for all of your pages then at least do it for your home page as this is the one that usually gets the most attention.

            ShearingsGroup 1 Reply Last reply Aug 8, 2012, 12:30 PM Reply Quote 0
            • ShearingsGroup
              ShearingsGroup @KyleChamp last edited by Aug 8, 2012, 12:27 PM Aug 8, 2012, 12:27 PM

              Well that's good news. Think I'll just leave them there then. Thanks!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • KyleChamp
                KyleChamp last edited by Aug 8, 2012, 12:24 PM Aug 8, 2012, 12:24 PM

                This is stright from Google Webmasters:

                "What happens if rel="canonical" points to a non-existent page? Or if more than one page in a set is specified as the canonical version?

                We'll do our best to algorithmically determine an appropriate canonical page, just as we've done in the past."

                http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

                Hope that helps 🙂

                ShearingsGroup Dr-Pete 2 Replies Last reply Aug 10, 2012, 3:17 PM Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • CREW-MARKETING

                  Quick Fix to "Duplicate page without canonical tag"?

                  When we pull up Google Search Console, in the Index Coverage section, under the category of Excluded, there is a sub-category called ‘Duplicate page without canonical tag’.  The majority of the 665 pages in that section are from a test environment. If we were to include in the robots.txt file, a wildcard to cover every URL that started with the particular root URL ("www.domain.com/host/"), could we eliminate the majority of these errors? That solution is not one of the 5 or 6 recommended solutions that the Google Search Console Help section text suggests.  It seems like a simple effective solution.  Are we missing something?

                  Technical SEO | Nov 13, 2018, 1:07 PM | CREW-MARKETING
                  1
                • amastone

                  Canonical tag use for ecommerce product page detail

                  Hi, I have a category page I want to rank. This page has 24 different products quite similar but not exactly the same.
                  I want to use canonical tag in any product to the parent category. 
                  Is this a right use of the canonical? 
                  Category page I'm talking about is : Finger bits If I understand how to use canonical tags I can improve all my category pages. thanks marco

                  Technical SEO | Mar 7, 2024, 6:39 AM | amastone
                  0
                • Shirley.Fenlason

                  If you use canonicals do the meta descriptions need to be different?

                  For example, we have 3 different subsites with the same pages. We will put canonicals so they reference the main pages. Do the meta descriptions have to be different for each of the three pages? How does Google handle meta data when using canonicals?

                  Technical SEO | Aug 8, 2016, 6:15 PM | Shirley.Fenlason
                  0
                • Webrevolve

                  What is the difference between "Referring Pages" and "Total Backlinks" [on Ahrefs]?

                  I always thought they were essentially the same thing myself but appears there may be a difference? Any one care to help me out? Cheers!

                  Technical SEO | Apr 3, 2014, 5:21 PM | Webrevolve
                  0
                • ShawnHerrick

                  Product Pages Outranking Category Pages

                  Hi, We are noticing an issue where some product pages are outranking our relevant category pages for certain keywords. For a made up example, a "heavy duty widgets" product page might rank for the keyword phrase Heavy Duty Widgets, instead of our Heavy Duty Widgets category page appearing in the SERPs. We've noticed this happening primarily in cases where the name of the product page contains an at least partial match for the desired keyword phrase we want the category page to rank for. However, we've also found isolated cases where the specified keyword points to a completely irrelevent pages instead of the relevant category page. Has anyone encountered a similar issue before, or have any ideas as to what may cause this to happen? Let me know if more clarification of the question is needed. Thanks!

                  Technical SEO | May 14, 2013, 7:16 PM | ShawnHerrick
                  0
                • BridgetGibbons

                  Isnt it better to have headlines in H1 and H2 tags instead of p tags?

                  I am working with a simple site http://http://lightsigns.com/Uniko_Manufacturing_Limited.html They seek more SEO traffic. However, the two big headlines that read "Wholesale Supply to the Sign and Display Industries" which is on line 241 and 242 of the source code, its in a p tag, i.e. <p <span class="webkit-html-tag">style</p <span>="padding-top: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style_1">Wholesale Supply to the and <p <span class="webkit-html-tag">style</p <span>="padding-bottom: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style_1">Sign and Display Industries Likewise, the product titles are in p tags, also. For example, on the Slide-in Light Box product page, http://lightsigns.com/Slide_In_light_box.html , I have done keyword research and no one is using the words slide in light box.Plus, it is also a p tag, ie. line 43 reads style="padding-bottom: 0pt; padding-top: 0pt; " class="paragraph_style">Slide-in Light Box If I suggest that they make an H2 tag with SEO-optimized keywords such as Display Light Box - Slide-In LIght Box, would this indeed help SEO? In summary, is it correct to say that H1 and H2 tags are stronger signals to the search bots of what the page is about?

                  Technical SEO | Apr 18, 2013, 4:25 PM | BridgetGibbons
                  1
                • sjcbayona-41218

                  Rel=Canonical on a page with 302 redirection existing

                  Hi SEOMoz! Can I have the rel=canonical tag on a URL page that has a 302 redirection? Does this harm the search engine friendliness of a content page / website? Thanks! Steve

                  Technical SEO | May 24, 2012, 1:17 AM | sjcbayona-41218
                  0
                • seoug_2005

                  Robots.txt and canonical tag

                  In the SEOmoz post - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/robot-access-indexation-restriction-techniques-avoiding-conflicts, it's being said - If you have a robots.txt disallow in place for a page, the canonical tag will never be seen. Does it so happen that if a page is disallowed by robots.txt, spiders DO NOT read the html code ?

                  Technical SEO | Aug 19, 2011, 6:49 AM | seoug_2005
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.