Pagination V Canonical
-
Hi Guys,
I am needing some help with regards to duplicate page content issues.
Using Zen Cart on an ecommerce platform and it is bringing up duplicate page content on pages. For instance:-
http://www.blissfulkidsparties.com.au/store/1st-birthday-themes-barnyard-bash-1st-birthday-c-67_321/
is the same as:-
Rel=Prev/Next as I understand it will treat
as one page but won't solve the issue of the duplicate content issues between:-
http://www.blissfulkidsparties.com.au/store/1st-birthday-themes-barnyard-bash-1st-birthday-c-67_321/
and
am I better using rel=Canonical here instead???
Kind Regards
Neil
-
So, technically, according to Google, the answer is really ugly. You should canonical to the page level (e.g. "page=2"), but then rel=prev/next to pages 1 and 3 with the same parameters have the current page. So, if you call page 2 with "sort=20" then, "sort=20" should be in the rel=prev/next tags, BUT the canonical should go to page 2 without the "sort=20".
Repeat this for every possible parameter, and welcome to Hell.
You could just use rel=prev/next with the base URLs, and then rel-canonical to the page level. The other option, though, is to hide these parameters completely. Could you store the results/page option in a cookie, for example (that's what I do on a lot of sites) or leave it default, unless someone changes it? If Google always gets the default, then they'll never see that in the URL.
You could also block the sort= parameter in Google Webmaster Tools, although I think combining that with rel=prev/next gets a bit messy.
-
If we navigate yoursite outside of the pagination then the root page is this:
http://www.blissfulkidsparties.com.au/store/1st-birthday-themes-c-67/
I would use that but the big thing here is just to be consistent.
Hope that helps.
Marcus
-
I have just read this post
http://www.seomoz.org/q/avoiding-duplicate-content-in-e-commerce-product-search-sorting-results
And Dr. Pete explains it well. However, If I use rel="canonical" and "rel=prev/next" together
would the rel=canonical be to this page http://www.blissfulkidsparties.com.au/store/1st-birthday-themes-barnyard-bash-1st-birthday-c-67_321/?sort=20a&page=1 or this page
http://www.blissfulkidsparties.com.au/store/1st-birthday-themes-barnyard-bash-1st-birthday-c-67_321/
I am confused!!!
Kind Regards
Neil
-
Hi Neil,
Yes use rel=Canonical, by using this code you are telling Google which page to count.
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
-
Canonical tag not working
I have a weebly site and I put the canonical tag in the header code but the moz crawler still says that I'm missing the canonical tag. Any tips?
Technical SEO | | ctpolarbears0 -
Should I use a canonical URL for images uploaded to a blog post in Wordpress?
Hi, I have a wordpress website that has articles/news posts witch contain imagery. I've noticed that in the Media Library, when you upload an image to a blog post it generates a new permalink ...article-name/article-image-01.jpg I have Yoast SEO plugin and have the option to set a canonical URL for this image. Should I point it back to the actual article? Thanks for any helpers with this.
Technical SEO | | Easigrass0 -
My content has been shared across different websites - how do I become the canonical link?
I wanted to ask about canonical links. Basically I produced some content for my website which was an interview with a famous band who were playing at a festival that summer. I told the festival and they asked to have exclusive dibs on releasing the piece in exchange for linking back to our domain. I said yes as I knew the link would be a good one. So this interview got posted up, I then posted in on my website's blog, and a month later the local newspaper also featured it on their website. Is there some way to have a creative license over this interview piece (which has been copied word for word) without getting the other websites to edit their code and add a canonical reference? I did ask them but my request was unsuccessful. I'm thinking there might be no way to claim this content as my website was not the first domain to post it? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | gazdye830 -
Can I canonical the same page?
I have a site where I have 500+ Page listing pages and I would like to rel=canonical them to the master page. Example: http://www.example.com//articles?p=18 OR http://www.example.com/articles?p=65 I plan on adding this to the section from of the page template so it goes to all pages - When I do this, I will also add the canonical to the page I am directing the canonical. Is this a bad thing? Or allowed?
Technical SEO | | JoshKimber0 -
Canonical tag or 301
Hi, Our crawl report is showing duplicate content. some of the report I am clear about what to do but on others I am not. Some of the duplicate content arises with a 'theme=default' on the end of the URL. Is this version of a page necessary for people to see when they visit the site (like a theme=print page is) in which case I think we should use a canonical tag, or is it not necessary in which case we should use a 301? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
Canonical question
I have at least three duplicate main pages on my website: www.augustbullocklaw.com www.augustbullocklaw.com/index augustbullocklaw.com I want the first one, www.augustbullocklaw.com to be the main page. I put this code on the index page and uploaded it to my site: http://www.augustbullocklaw.com/canonical-version-of-page/" rel="canonical" /> This code now appears on all three pages shown above. Did I do this correctly? I surmise that www.augustbullocklaw.com is pointing to itself. Is that ok? I don't know how to take the cononical code off the page that is the page I want to be the main page. (I don't know how to remove it from www.augustbullocklaw.com, but leave it on www.augustbullocklaw.com/index and augustbullocklaw.com) Thanks
Technical SEO | | Augster990 -
The Mysterious Case of Pagination, Canonical Tags
Hey guys, My head explodes when I think of this problem. So I will leave it to you guys to find a solution... My root domain (xxx.com) runs on WordPress platform. I use Yoast SEO plugin. The next page of root domain -- page/2/ -- has been canonicalized to the same page -- page/2/ points to page/2/ for example. The page/2/ and remaining pages also have this rel tags: I have also added "noindex,follow" to page/2/ and further -- Yoast does this automatically. Note: Yoast plugin also adds canonical to page/2/...page/3/ automatically. Same is the case with category pages and tag pages. Oh, and the author pages too -- they all have self-canonicalization, rel prev & rel next tags, and have been "noindex, followed." Problem: Am I doing this the way it should be done? I asked a Google Webmaster employee on rel next and prev tags, and this is what she said: "We do not recommend noindexing later pages, nor rel="canonical"izing everything to the first page." (My bad, last year I was canonicalizing pages to first page). One of the popular blog, a competitor, uses none of these tags. Yet they rank higher. Others following this format have been hit with every kind of Google algorithm I could think of. I want to leave it to Google to decide what's better, but then again, Yoast SEO plugin rules my blog -- okay, let's say I am a bad coder. Any help, suggestions, and thoughts are highly appreciated. 🙂 Update 1: Paginated pages -- including category pages and tag pages -- have unique snippets; no full-length posts. Thought I'd make that clear.
Technical SEO | | sidstar0 -
Paginated Home Page Duplicates on Wordpress Sites
A number of my websites created on WP are displaying duplicate home pages with these types of urls. http://www.example.com/page/10/ http://www.example.com/page/11/ http://www.example.com/page/12/ I found these duplicates using the site:search command. Basically, put in any number and the Home Page opens. With the above mentioned url structure. Any idea on why they are created, how they can be stopped and what kind of an impact they would have in terms of SEO and the penalty that comes with duplicate content.
Technical SEO | | AsadMemon1