If I put a piece of content on an external site can I syndicate to my site later using a rel=canonical link?
-
Could someone help me with a 'what if ' scenario please?
What happens if I publish a piece of content on an external website, but then later decide to also put this content on my website. I want my website to rank first for this content, even though the original location for the content was the external website.
Would it be okay for me to put a rel=canonical tag on the external website's content pointing to the copy on my website? Or would this be seen as manipulative?
-
Thanks for your thoughts on this, Dirk.
I really appreciate them.
E
-
Thanks for answering my question Dirk! I found the deeper follow up conversation interesting as well.
-
Hi Egol,
Interesting question, but difficult to answer. Could be a topic to ask on one of the Webmaster hangouts.
It all depends on how Google handles canonicals internally.
One possibility would be that Google considers the page from A that is syndicated on B not really as a page from B but a page from A. In that case, the links from that page would count as an internal link (A->A rather than as an external link B->A).
Another possibility would be that Google considers the fact that B is republishing the content from A as a kind of endorsement for A (in a non SEO world a site would only republish content from another site if the quality was really good). In that case, the links on the syndicated page would have value.
In both cases I would personally keep the links on the page. If you added them, it implies you think these links have some value for the visitor so taking them off wouldn't make much sense (unless your main goal was to add these links in order to optimise your internal link structure)
If you want to be on the safe side - if the links go to "commercial" pages, you could make them nofollow, if it's to other editorial content if would keep them as follow. I wouldn't omit the links - even when "nofollow" they could still generate traffic for your site.
Didn't found any "hard evidence" to support this, but we seem to have come in the stage where Google scared us so much about "bad links" that we start to question all type of incoming links.
Sometimes you just have to trust your gut feeling - if the link looks "normal" in the context (and adds some value for the visitor) I would stick to a follow link.Dirk
-
Thank you, Dirk.
Here is a question, one step deeper.
Let's say that I have an article on Site A that I want to republish on Site B with the rel=canonical on Site B pointing to Site A. The article on Site A has internal links to other pages on Site A. What should I do with those links when the article is republished on Site B.
1) Omit them
2) Nofollow them
3) Republish them allowing the links to be followed
I think that #3 is a bad idea. I believe that those links could be considered spammy.
I like #2 best because the links will send traffic to additional relevant content.
I think that #1 is the safest.
Do you have any opinion on these options?
Thank you.
-
No - it won't be seen as manipulative, in fact it is the recommended way to syndicate content. Check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066:
"Addressing syndicated content. If you syndicate your content for publication on other domains, you want to consolidate page ranking to your preferred URL.
To address these issues, we recommend you define a canonical URL for content (or equivalent content) available through multiple URLs"
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
-
Can’t put a finger on, what is causing 12 year domain, SEO optimized and decent link profile to rank lower than other less superior domains.
Can’t put a finger on, what is causing 12 year domain, SEO optimized and decent link profile to rank lower than other less superior domains. I have dissected the site and link, content, etc profile using ahrefs tools, still no luck, and unfortunately they do not have a community to ask anyone opinion. Hoping someone on Moz will be able to provide me with a secondary opinion or something I obviously missing here. Looking for any constructive feedback/professional opinion with fresh look on what maybe the cause of our down rankings and what may be a cause of it. Any feedback is very much appreciated. Search Term: 3030 aventura condos / One of our link samples (SE Position #6): https://goo.gl/FbYj4V Competing Domains (SE Position #1): https://goo.gl/fLPKX5 Competing Domains (SE Position #2): https://goo.gl/GqXGse
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Im_Jake0 -
Too Many External Links A Problem
Client is thinking of adding a directory to an eCommerce site which users would find useful. It would help users find other services and vendors that are specific to the niche of products this site is selling. My only concern is it would create a number of external links to other sites. Even though they're related, would this diminish our standing with Google search?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
Rel Canonical attribute order
So the position of the attribute effect the rel canonical tags' ability to function? is the way I see it across multiple documents and websites. Having a discussion with someone in the office and there is a website with it set up as: Will that cause any problems? The website is inquestion still has both pages indexed within Google using the SITE:domain.com/product as well as SITE:domain.com/category/product
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasondexter0 -
My site is always in the top 4 on google, and sometimes goes to #2\. But the site at #1 is always at #1 .. how can i beat them?
So i'm sure this is a very generic question.. of course everyone wants to be #1. We are an ecommerce web site. We have all sorts of products, user ratings, and are loved by our customers. We sell over 3 million a year. So let me give you some data.. First of all one of the sites that keeps taking the #2 or #3 spot is amazons category for what we sell.. (i'm not sure if I should say who we are here.. as I don't want the #1 spot to realize we are trying to take them over!) Amazon of course has a domain authority of 100. But they never take the #1 spot. The other site that takes the #2 and #3 spot is not even selling anything. Happens to be a technical term's with the same name wikipedia page! (i wish google would figure out people aren't looking for that!) Anyways.. every day we bouce back and forth between #4 and #2.. but #1 never changes.. Here are the stats of us verse #1 from moz: #1: Page Authority: 56.8, Root Domains Linking to page: 158, Domain Authority: 54.6: root domains linking to the root domain 1.42k my site: Page Authority: 60.6, Root domains linking to the page: 562, Domain Authority: 52.8: root domains linking to the root domain: 1.03k So they beat us in domain authority SLIGHTLY and in root domains linking to the root domain. So SEO masters.. what do I do to fix this? Get better backlinks? But how.... I can't just email GQ and ask them to write about us can I? I'm open to all things.. Maybe i'm not using moz data correctly.. We should at least be #2. We get #2 every other day.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 88mph0 -
'Nofollow' footer links from another site, are they 'bad' links?
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | romanbond
one of my sites has about 1000 'nofollow' links from the footer of another of my sites. Are these in any way hurtful? Any help appreciated..0 -
Is this ok for content on our site?
We run a printing company and as an example the grey box (at the bottom of the page) is what we have on each page http://www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk/banners/vinyl-pvc-banners.html We used to use this but tried to get most of the content on the page, but we now want to add a bit more in-depth information to each page. The question i have is - would a 1200 word document be ok in there and not look bad to Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Can links indexed by google "link:" be bad? or this is like a good example by google
Can links indexed by google "link:" be bad? Or this is like a good example shown by google. We are cleaning our links from Penguin and dont know what to do with these ones. Some of them does not look quality.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0 -
Can obfuscated Javascript be used for too many links on a page?
Hi mozzers Just looking for opinions/answers on if it is ever appropriate to use obfuscated Javascript on links when a page has many links but they need to be there for usability? It seems grey/black hat to me as it shows users something different to Google (alarm bells are sounding already!) BUT if the page has many links it's losing juice which could be saved....... Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TrevorJones0