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.
Google is indexing urls with parameters despite canonical
-
Hello Moz,
Google is indexing lots of urls despite the canonical in my site. Those urls are linked all over the site with parameters like ?, and looks like Google is indexing them despite de canonical. Is Google deciding to index those urls because they are linked all over the site? The canonical tag is well implemented.
-
Hi there,
As has been pointed out, the rel=canonical tag is just a suggestion to Google that you don't want a page to be indexed or to rank. They can choose to ignore the tag if they want to. If you want to keep pages out of the index, there are a few options:
-
The rel=canonical tag as you've tried
-
Adding a noindex tag as pointed out above
-
Use the URL parameters configuration option in Google Webmaster Tools
Give that you've tried the first one, I'd recommend giving the second two options a try and seeing what happens.
I hope that helps!
Paddy
-
-
I believe the problem here is being caused by the fact that you are using relative, rather than absolute URLs for your canonical tag. I've seen this happen before on a site I was working on. Thanks to awesome suggestions from Moz Q & A from community member George Andrews (endorsed by Dr. Pete Meyers), we updated all of our canonical tags to be absolute URLs instead of relative URLs. This completely solved the exact problem you are describing.
Here's a link to that thread: http://moz.com/community/q/what-is-the-proper-syntax-for-rel-canonical
The best news is, it's a very easy, inexpensive and quick SEO win.
I love those!Dana
- topic:timeago_earlier,21 days
-
Thanks for your answerk, but I don't think this can be the solition.
The problem is that Google is indexing urls with parameters, so, I can see in SERPS those urls indexed despite the canonical
But in code you can see:
www.myweb.com/url123?type=3 has the rel="canonical" href="//myweb.com/url123" />
-
Hi,
The rel canonical tag won't prevent pages from being indexed - all it does is act as a way to 'suggest' to Google that there is a preferred page. if you don't want pages indexing, you have to prevent Google from crawling and indexing them (noindex).
-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
-
No index for http version of website
Hi, I've had a message from Google search console to say the sitemap for the http version of my site is tagged as no index. As the https version is indexed, do I need to change the http version to be indexed as well? Do I need to keep the http version of the site in search console alongside the https version, or should I remove it? Advice appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | Feb 5, 2020, 2:16 PM | Robingoodlad0 -
Does Google avoid indexing pages that include registered trademark signs?
I am suspecting that Google often hesitates to index pages that have registered trademarks on them that are marked with a ®. For example EGOL® used in the title tag or in the tag at the top of the page. Registered trademarks are everywhere and most retail product pages contain at least one of them. However, most people use the registered trademark names as text in their writing without adding the registered trademark sign of ®. Have you experienced a problem getting such pages indexed or have you read any articles about how Google treats registered trademarks?
On-Page Optimization | Oct 18, 2016, 1:58 AM | EGOL0 -
Any idea how Google is doing this? Is it schematic? http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/google-adds-full-restaurant-menus-to-its-search-results-pages/
Google is now showing menus on select searches. Any idea how they are getting this information? I would like to make sure my clients get visibility this way.
On-Page Optimization | Mar 27, 2014, 10:30 PM | Ron_McCabe0 -
How do I remove a Canonical URL Tag?
Some of my report cards say I have too many canonical URL tags. However, there is no information no how to delete one. Can someone give me a link or explain? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | Apr 29, 2013, 5:42 PM | dealblogger0 -
How to properly remove pages and a category from Google's index
I want to remove this category http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ and all the pages in that category (e.g. http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/7386.html ) from Google's index. I used the following string in the "Reomval URS" section in Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/* is that correct or I better use http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ ? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | Sep 20, 2012, 9:43 AM | VinceWicks0 -
Google cached snapshots and last indexed
My question is I noticed today that the snap shots of my main pages were outdated. About a month. Then I clicked on the "Learn More" link about cahced images and Google says "Google crawls the web and takes snapshots of each page. When you click Cached, you'll see the webpage as it looked when we last indexed it." I know this sounds really dumb, but does that really mean the last time Google indexed that page? So the changes I have made since then have not been taken yet?
On-Page Optimization | Jul 25, 2012, 5:11 PM | cbielich0 -
No Data Available for this URL
Hi,
On-Page Optimization | Dec 23, 2011, 6:19 PM | ostiguyj
I really don't understand why I have this message "No data available for this URL"
in my SEOMOZ campain. (www.bienchezsoi.ca) When I look at my page rank, I get a score of 0 I have no idea of to fix it. Please help. Thanks0 -
301 redirect and then keywords in URL
Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?
On-Page Optimization | Jul 21, 2011, 7:41 PM | BobGW0
