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.
If you use canonicals do the meta descriptions need to be different?
-
For example, we have 3 different subsites with the same pages. We will put canonicals so they reference the main pages. Do the meta descriptions have to be different for each of the three pages? How does Google handle meta data when using canonicals?
-
I don't really know any best practices in this topic. Me, in your case, I'd leave them just as they are now. Applying the canonicals, of course.
-
Thanks for your response.
Would you recommend as a best practice to include/repeat the same metadata on all the pages referencing the other (canonical) page or should we leave the metadata fields on the pages with canonicals blank?
-
Hi there,
Long story short: Nop it doesn't care that both pages with canonicals have the same meta data. It only matters the selected by the canonical.
Best luck.
GR. -
Hi there.
Basically, canonical link tells search engines to move all the ranking weight to a page, linked by canonical link. Therefore if google thinks that page A should be ranked for a given keyphrase, but this page A has a canonical link to another page B, page B will be considered as a ranking nominee and page A will be discarded. Which means that all meta data and other things WILL be taken from page B.
Hope this helps.
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 or hreflang?
I have four English sites for four different countries, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I want to share some content between the sites. On the pages that share the content, which is essentially exactly the same on all 4 sites, do I use the hreflang tags like: or do I add a canonical tag to the other three pointing to the "origin", which would be the UK site? I believe it is best practice to use one or the other, but I'm not sure which make sense in this situation.
Technical SEO | Aug 23, 2022, 9:41 AM | andrew-mso0 -
Site Hack In Meta Description
Hey MOZ Community, I am looking for some help in identifying where the following meta description is coming from on this home page - https://www.apins.com. I have scrubbed through the page source without being able to locate where the content is being pulled from. The website is built on WordPress and metas were updated using Yoast, but I am wondering if an installed plugin could be the culprit. On top of this, I have had a developer take a look for the "hack" and they have assured that the issue has been removed. I have submitted the URL in GSC a couple of times to be re-indexed but have not had much luck. Any thoughts would be much appreciated, the displayed description is below. The health screening plays http://buyviagraonlineccm.com/ a significant and key role in detecting potentially life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, heart ...
Technical SEO | Apr 12, 2019, 5:31 AM | jordankremer0 -
URL has caps, but canonical does not. Now what?
Hi, Just started working with a site that has the occasional url with a capital, but then the url in the canonical as lower case. Neither, when entered in a browser, resolves to the other. It's a Shopify site. What do you think I should do?
Technical SEO | Feb 21, 2017, 10:51 AM | 945010 -
Should I put meta descriptions on pages that are not indexed?
I have multiple pages that I do not want to be indexed (and they are currently not indexed, so that's great). They don't have meta descriptions on them and I'm wondering if it's worth my time to go in and insert them, since they should hypothetically never be shown. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks! The reason this is a question is because one member of our team was linking to this page through Facebook to send people to it and noticed random text on the page being pulled in as the description.
Technical SEO | Jul 10, 2013, 10:03 PM | Viewpoints0 -
Links under Meta Description when performing a search
Doing research for clients, I have came across seeing sites displaying hyperlinks underneath their own meta description. keywords that I have googled that result with hyperlinks displaying under meta descriptions: Google'd: iacquire (brand) bmw wheels (Beyern Wheels, position 1) aftermarket bmw wheels (MMR Wheels, position 2) These companys have hyperlinks underneath their descriptions. Anyone have any ideas why this happens or how it happens?
Technical SEO | Jun 7, 2013, 6:48 PM | frnprz0 -
I need help with a PHP canonical URL tags
I found a little difficult for me to do a canonical tag in my PHP. On-Page Report Card We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply. I don't know how to tidy my PHP Any suggestion.
Technical SEO | Jul 18, 2013, 2:00 PM | lnietob0 -
Two different canonical tags on one page
Due to an error, some of my pages now have two canonical tags on them. One is correct and the other goes to a nonsense URL (404 page). I know I should ideally remove the incorrect ones, but it's a big manual job. Are they doing any harm? Can I just leave them there and let Google figure it out? The correct ones are higher up in the code. Will this make a difference? Any help appreciated.
Technical SEO | Aug 10, 2012, 3:17 PM | ShearingsGroup0 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | Nov 27, 2011, 12:19 PM | upick-1623910