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
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • 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
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • 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.

    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Rel="canonical" and rel="alternate" both necessary?

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.

Rel="canonical" and rel="alternate" both necessary?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
10
12.5k
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.
  • AlliedComputer
    AlliedComputer last edited by Sep 5, 2013, 3:02 PM

    We are fighting some duplicate content issues across multiple domains. We have a few magento stores that have different country codes. For example: domain.com and domain.ca, domain.com is the "main" domain.

    We have set up different rel="alternative codes like:

    The question is, do we need to add custom rel="canonical" tags to domain.ca that points to domain.com?

    For example for domain.ca/product.html to point to:

    Also how far does rel="canonical" follow?  For example if we have:
    domain.ca/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/sub/product.html
    then,
    domain.com/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/product.html

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Dr-Pete
      Dr-Pete Staff @TomSlage last edited by Sep 9, 2013, 6:32 PM Sep 9, 2013, 6:32 PM

      I'm honestly not completely clear on what the different URLs are for - I'd just add a note to keep the core difference between canonical and 301s in mind. A canonical tag only impacts Google, and eventually, search results. A 301 impacts all visitors (and moves them to the other page). A lot of people get hung up on the SEO side, but the two methods are very different for end-users.

      As Tom said, if these variations have no user value, you could consolidate them altogether with 301s. I always hesitate to suggest it without in-depth knowledge of the site, though, because I've seen people run off and do something dangerous.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TomSlage
        TomSlage @AlliedComputer last edited by Sep 9, 2013, 5:16 PM Sep 9, 2013, 5:16 PM

        What's the purpose of the URL if there's not even any sorting or anything unique going on? If's a sorted URL (say by "size" smallest-largest for /little leage/ URL) it might be actually useful to develop some unique category content to let the page rank separately.

        If the content is totally unique, I don't think you could really go wrong redirecting. To be safe, I'd probably rely on analytics to answer the question "what impact will redirection have?" For instance, is there a difference in conversion rate between the URLs. If you see a conversion bump from a more specific URL, you might want to sleuth out what's causing it.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AlliedComputer
          AlliedComputer @TomSlage last edited by Sep 9, 2013, 1:59 PM Sep 9, 2013, 1:59 PM

          Would you worry about it if the categories are somewhat useful for users to drill down the content?

          For example:
          /product.html
          /aluminum-baseball-bats/product.html
          /little-league-baseball-bats/product.html

          They don't sell bats but it is the easiest way to describe it I guess.  In this cause would you still 301 redirect the two longer urls to /product.html

          TomSlage 1 Reply Last reply Sep 9, 2013, 5:16 PM Reply Quote 0
          • TomSlage
            TomSlage @AlliedComputer last edited by Sep 9, 2013, 11:48 AM Sep 9, 2013, 11:48 AM

            Yes, providing that the /category1/ and /category2/ heirarchy doesn't help the user experience (e.g. product segmentation based on say, color and brand, which would be useful for users to drill down to).

            I like 301s better because they are permanent, non-ambiguous, respected by all engines, and chiefly because they eliminate the possibilty of inlink dillution because the redirected URLs are never seeen.

            AlliedComputer 1 Reply Last reply Sep 9, 2013, 1:59 PM Reply Quote 1
            • Dr-Pete
              Dr-Pete Staff @FedeEinhorn last edited by Sep 6, 2013, 6:08 PM Sep 6, 2013, 6:08 PM

              Yeah, don't use rel=canonical for the same purpose as rel=alternate - the canonical tag will override the alternate/lang tag and may cause your alternate versions to rank incorrectly or not at all. It can be a bit unpredictable. If you only wanted one version to show up in search results, then rel=canonical would be ok, but rel=alternate is a softer signal to help Google rank the right page in the right situation. It's not perfect, but that's the intent.

              As for multiple canonicals like what you described, that's essential like chaining 301-redirects. As much as possible, avoid it - you'll lose link equity, and Google may just not honor them in some cases. There's no hard/fast limit, and two levels may be ok in some cases, but I think it's just a recipe for trouble long-term. Fix the canonicals to be single-hop wherever possible.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • AlliedComputer
                AlliedComputer @FedeEinhorn last edited by Sep 5, 2013, 8:48 PM Sep 5, 2013, 8:48 PM

                Thanks that is what I was thinking, I just need to know more about if the bots will follow the canonical's past one level when pointing to a different domain and if so how many levels on the different sites.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • AlliedComputer
                  AlliedComputer @TomSlage last edited by Sep 5, 2013, 8:46 PM Sep 5, 2013, 8:46 PM

                  Interesting idea, I might have to do that.  Right now I have canonical elements on the .com

                  It is a magento store so it creates dirty duplicate content when the products are in different categories out of the box, for example magento creates the following product pages:

                  domain.com/store/productcategory1/product.html
                  domain.com/store/productcategory2/product.html
                  domain.com/store/product.html

                  In this case I have canonical elements pointing the categories to the main root domain.com/store/product.html

                  So you think it would be better to do a 301 redirect for the different product urls that are in subcategories?

                  TomSlage 1 Reply Last reply Sep 9, 2013, 11:48 AM Reply Quote 0
                  • TomSlage
                    TomSlage last edited by Sep 5, 2013, 3:26 PM Sep 5, 2013, 3:26 PM

                    Miles,

                    On your last question, I'm wondering if those two canonical tags are necessary? Are the /sub/ versions of those pages necessary for user experience? If not, I'd add a canonical element to the .com version, then redirect the /sub/product.html to /product.html. That would help you avoid splitting link authority.

                    AlliedComputer Dr-Pete 2 Replies Last reply Sep 9, 2013, 6:32 PM Reply Quote 1
                    • FedeEinhorn
                      FedeEinhorn last edited by Sep 5, 2013, 3:18 PM Sep 5, 2013, 3:13 PM

                      Hey Miles,

                      The both are for different uses and may or may not be used in the same page depending on your situation.

                      If the content in the CA and COM versions is the same, then you should add a rel canonical + rel alternate, the rel alternate pointing to itself and the other version of it, and the canonical pointing to the one you consider definitive.

                      If the content isn't the same, then the rel canonical isn't needed (but suggested, pointing to itself in each lang/alternate), only the alternate should be in place.

                      You can read more on Dr. Pete's post here: http://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions

                      Hope that helps!

                      AlliedComputer Dr-Pete 2 Replies Last reply Sep 6, 2013, 6:08 PM Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        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

                      • grnjbs0717

                        SEO on Jobs sites: how to deal with expired listings with "Google for Jobs" around

                        Dear community, When dealing with expired job offers on jobs sites from a SEO perspective, most practitioners recommend to implement 301 redirects to category pages in order to keep the positive ranking signals of incoming links. Is it necessary to rethink this recommendation with "Google for Jobs" is around? Google's recommendations on how to handle expired job postings does not include 301 redirects. "To remove a job posting that is no longer available: Remove the job posting from your sitemap. Do one of the following: Note: Do NOT just add a message to the page indicating that the job has expired without also doing one of the following actions to remove the job posting from your sitemap. Remove the JobPosting markup from the page. Remove the page entirely (so that requesting it returns a 404 status code). Add a noindex meta tag to the page." Will implementing 301 redirects the chances to appear in "Google for Jobs"? What do you think?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 18, 2017, 5:49 AM | grnjbs0717
                        5
                      • rmehta1

                        [Very Urgent] More 100 "/search/adult-site-keywords" Crawl errors under Search Console

                        I just opened my G Search Console and was shocked to see more than 150 Not Found errors under Crawl errors. Mine is a Wordpress site (it's consistently updated too): Here's how they show up: Example 1: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html/feed/rss2 Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html Example 2 (this surprised me the most when I looked at the linked from data): URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/3/ Linked From: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/2/ (this is showing as if it's from our own site) http://a-spammy-adult-site.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html Example 3: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html How do I address this issue?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 23, 2016, 3:53 PM | rmehta1
                        0
                      • atomiconline

                        Best way to "Prune" bad content from large sites?

                        I am in process of pruning my sites for low quality/thin content. The issue is that I have multiple sites with 40k + pages and need a more efficient way of finding the low quality content than looking at each page individually. Is there an ideal way to find the pages that are worth no indexing that will speed up the process but not potentially harm any valuable pages? Current plan of action is to pull data from analytics and if the url hasn't brought any traffic in the last 12 months then it is safe to assume it is a page that is not beneficial to the site. My concern is that some of these pages might have links pointing to them and I want to make sure we don't lose that link juice. But, assuming we just no index the pages we should still have the authority pass along...and in theory, the pages that haven't brought any traffic to the site in a year probably don't have much authority to begin with. Recommendations on best way to prune content on sites with hundreds of thousands of pages efficiently?  Also, is there a benefit to no indexing the pages vs deleting them? What is the preferred method, and why?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 4, 2016, 3:14 PM | atomiconline
                        0
                      • allianzireland

                        Case Sensitive URLs, Duplicate Content & Link Rel Canonical

                        I have a site where URLs are case sensitive. In some cases the lowercase URL is being indexed and in others the mixed case URL is being indexed. This is leading to duplicate content issues on the site. The site is using link rel canonical to specify a preferred URL in some cases however there is no consistency whether the URLs are lowercase or mixed case. On some pages the link rel canonical tag points to the lowercase URL, on others it points to the mixed case URL. Ideally I'd like to update all link rel canonical tags and internal links throughout the site to use the lowercase URL however I'm apprehensive! My question is as follows: If I where to specify the lowercase URL across the site in addition to updating internal links to use lowercase URLs, could this have a negative impact where the mixed case URL is the one currently indexed? Hope this makes sense! Dave

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 25, 2015, 2:28 PM | allianzireland
                        0
                      • nicole.healthline

                        Why is "Noindex" better than a "Canonical" for Pagination?

                        "Noindex" is a suggested pagination technique here: http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284, and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page, but I'd love if someone can explain why "noindex" is better than a canonical?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 14, 2014, 4:30 PM | nicole.healthline
                        0
                      • BeytzNet

                        Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons?

                        Hello and Merry Christmass Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons? My e-commerce site has hundreds of products. Content wise, there is no real value to the reader on that page (besides for some testimonials and "why here" sentences). So it is not a page you'd want / expect to find in the SERPs. Also, with hundreds of links pointing to this page it would be "stronger" than other important pages which doesn't make sense. Last but not least, if I have limited time that the bots are on my site, why keep sending them to a non important page. This is why I am leaning to nofollowing the "add to cart" buttons and looking for reinforcements. Thanks

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 25, 2013, 9:00 PM | BeytzNet
                        0
                      • mudbugmedia

                        Schema.org Implementation: "Physician" vs. "Person"

                        Hey all, I'm looking to implement Schema tagging for a local business and am unsure of whether to use "Physician" or "Person" for a handful of doctors. Though "Physician" seems like it should be the obvious answer, Schema.org states that it should refer to "A doctor's office" instead of a physician. The properties used in "Physician" seem to apply to a physician's practice, and not an actual physician. Properties are sourced from the "Thing", "Place", "Organization", and "LocalBusiness" schemas, so I'm wondering if "Person" might be a more appropriate implementation since it allows for more detail (affiliations, awards, colleagues, jobTitle, memberOf), but I wanna make sure I get this right. Also, I'm wondering if the "Physician" schema allows for properties pulled from the "Person" schema, which I think would solve everything. For reference: http://schema.org/Person http://schema.org/Physician Thanks, everyone! Let me know how off-base my strategy is, and how I might be able to tidy it up.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 22, 2012, 5:35 PM | mudbugmedia
                        0
                      • CommercePundit

                        How Google treat internal links with rel="nofollow"?

                        Today, I was reading about NoFollow on Wikipedia. Following statement is over my head and not able to understand with proper manner. "Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page)." It's all about indexing and ranking for specific keywords for hyperlink text during external links. I aware about that section. It may not generate in relevant result during any keyword on Google web search. But, what about internal links? I have defined rel="nofollow" attribute on too many internal links. I have archive blog post of Randfish with same subject. I read following question over there. Q. Does Google recommend the use of nofollow internally as a positive method for controlling the flow of internal link love? [In 2007] A: Yes – webmasters can feel free to use nofollow internally to help tell Googlebot which pages they want to receive link juice from other pages
                        _
                        (Matt's precise words were: The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt'ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There's no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow'ed links are dropped out of our link graph; we don't even use such links for discovery. By the way, the nofollow meta tag does that same thing, but at a page level.) Matt has given excellent answer on following question. [In 2011] Q: Should internal links use rel="nofollow"?  A:Matt said: "I don't know how to make it more concrete than that." I use nofollow for each internal link that points to an internal page that has the meta name="robots" content="noindex" tag. Why should I waste Googlebot's ressources and those of my server if in the end the target must not be indexed? As far as I can say and since years, this does not cause any problems at all. For internal page anchors (links with the hash mark in front like "#top", the answer is "no", of course. I am still using nofollow attributes on my website. So, what is current trend? Will it require to use nofollow attribute for internal pages?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 7, 2011, 8:42 AM | CommercePundit
                        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.