Can I use rel=canonical and then remove it?
-
Hi all!
I run a ticketing site and I am considering using rel=canonical temporary.
In Europe, when someone is looking for tickets for a soccer game, they look for them differently if the game is played in one city or in another city.
I.e.:
"liverpool arsenal tickets" - game played in the 1st leg in 2012
"arsenal liverpool tickets - game played in the 2nd leg in 2013
We have two different events, with two different unique texts but sometimes Google chooses the one in 2013 one before the closest one, especially for queries without dates or years.
I don't want to remove the second game from our site - exceptionally some people can broswer our website and buy tickets with months in advance.
So I am considering place a rel=canonical in the game played in 2013 poiting to the game played in a few weeks. After that, I would remove it.
Would that make any sense?
Thanks!
-
I would create a generic canonical "/tickets/liverpool_arsenal" which lists the upcoming games. I would create unique canonicals/titles with event information for each game.
Use a 302 to redirect to the most appropriate content (i.e. the upcoming game).
-
Just remember that rel canonical is a suggestion to Google rather than an order and can still be overlooked.
Have you thought about a 302 temporary redirect instead? This will guarantee the correct page is viewed.
Andy
-
Thanks for the answer Andy. We already have them But Google just chooses wronlgy sometimes. When the user add the date to the query, i.e.: "arsenal liverpool 2012 tickets" then the result is the right one. But for generic searches like: "arsenal liverpool tickets" Google sometimes picks the next event and some other times the one in 2013.
-
I would be tempted to look at adding some Schema.org metadata in there Jorge. You can setup dates and event specific information that will give you a new rich snippet result in Google - have a look at the Sports Events on Schema.org. This is what they are there for
Andy
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
-
Quickview product modal - should I add rel=canonical to each URL ?
I have a quick view modal for all products on my website. How should I deal with these in the page set up eg. should I rel=canonical to the full product page and no-index in robots txt or are they ok in Googles eyes as they are part of the UX ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
Rel=Alternate on Paginated Pages
I've a question about setting up the rel=alternate & rel=canonical tags between desktop and a dedicated mobile site in specific regards to paginated pages. On the desktop and mobile site, all paginated pages have the rel=canonical set towards a single URL as per usual. On the desktop site though, should the rel=alternate be to the relevant paginated page on the mobile site (ie a different rel=alternate on every paginated page) or to a single URL just as it is vice versa. Cheers chaps.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eventurerob1 -
Rel Canonical Link on the Canonical Page
Is there a problem with placing a rel=canonical link on the canonical page - in addition to the duplicate pages? For example, would that create create an endless loop where the canonical page keeps referring to itself? Two examples that are troubling me are: My home site is www.1099pro.com which is exactly the same as www.1099pro.com/index.asp (all updates to the home page are made by updating the index.asp page). I want www.1099pro.com/index.asp to have the rel=canonical link to point to my standard homepage www.1099pro.com but any update that I make on the index page is automatically incorporated into www.1099pro.com as well. I don't have access to my hosting web server and any updates I make have to be done to the specific landing pages/templates. I am also creating a new website that could possible have pages with duplicate content in the future. I would like to already include the rel=canonical link on the standard canonical page even though there is not duplicate content yet. Any help really would be appreciated. I've read a ton of articles on the subject but none really define whether or not it is ok to have the rel=canonical link on both the canonical page and the duplicate pages. The closest explanation was in a MOZ article that it was ok but the answer was fuzzy. -Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
How can I remove duplicate content & titles from my site?
Without knowing I created multiple URLs to the same page destinations on my website. My ranking is poor and I need to fix this problem quickly. My web host doesn't understand the problem!!! How can I use canonical tags? Can somebody help, please.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZoeAlexander0 -
Removing old versions of a page.
Recently one of my good friends updated his iweb based screen printing site to wordpress per my recommendation. This update has helped dramatically boost his rankings to #3 for most local keywords. This new site is now V5 of his site, but all older iweb versions are still on the ftp. There are a total of 209 pages on the ftp, as versions of about 30 actual pages. The pages have changed significantly with each update, leaving very little duplicate content, but the old ones are still on the google index. Would it hurt the rankings to clean up these older versions & 301 redirect to the new versions, or should we leave them? The site for reference is: http://takeholdprinting.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GoogleMcDougald0 -
Can I rank for 3 keyword phrases using one long tial Keyword Phrase?
I am new to seo and still getting my head around long tail searches. If i use a phrase such as "luxury towels uk", Can i also rank on the same page for "luxury towels" and "towels uk"? Tui means ranking for 3 phrases using 1 long tail
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Is it ok to use both 301 redirect and rel="canonical' at the same time?
Hi everyone, I'm sorry if this has been asked before. I just wasn't able to find a response in previous questions. To fix the problems in our website regarding duplication I have the possibility to set up 301's and, at the same time, modify our CMS so that it automatically sets a rel="canonical" tag for every page that is generated. Would it be a problem to have both methods set up? Is it a problem to have a on a page that is redirecting to another one? Is it advisable to have a rel="canonical" tag on every single page? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SDLOnlineChannel0 -
Canonical Problems
Hi Guys, There is so much info out there about canonical issues and 301 redirects I'm not sure what to do about my problem. Google webmaster says I have over 2000 duplicate page titles. Google is showing most of my pages in duplicate or triplicate url format. Example: /store/LOVE_OIL_CARIBBEAN_ROSE//store/LOVE_OIL_CARIBBEAN_ROSE/store/love_oil_caribbean_rose/Im using x-cart pro as my cart.When I look at the source code I see each one having a rel=canonical tag with the exact urls you see above. Can someone give me an example of a redirect that I can put in my .htaccess file that would work site wide?I obviously cant go through and 301 this on a page by page basis. It would take a year.Thank You Tim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fasctimseo0