Does Google read dynamic canonical tags?

[SoulSurfer8]

Does Google recognize rel=canonical tag if loaded dynamically via javascript? Here's what we're using to load:

<script> //Inject canonical link into page head
    if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname1") != -1) {
        canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/kapiolani", "");
    }
    if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname2") != -1) {
        canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/straub", "");
    }
    if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname3") != -1) {
        canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/pali-momi", "");
    }
    if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname4") != -1) {
        canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/wilcox", "");
    }
    if (canonicalLink != window.location.href) {
        var link = document.createElement('link');
        link.rel = 'canonical';
        link.href = canonicalLink;
        document.head.appendChild(link);
    } script>

[SoulSurfer8]

I believe it's a limitation of our CMS. I'll see if we can try it in htaccess or PHP. Thanks for the insight.

[SoulSurfer8]

Thanks for the reply. Doesn't appear Google is recognizing the tag because duplicate pages with it are still showing up in SERPs.

[andy.bigbangthemes]

I Wouldn't bet on that working. Why not use the exact same code in .htaccess format, or even PHP? Javascript is a coding language that is parsed after the window starts loading, it's not like PHP where it gets parsed before the load.

Thanks

[donsilvernail]

Hi SoulSurfer,

Read This http://searchengineland.com/tested-googlebot-crawls-javascript-heres-learned-220157

The google bot was able to read rel=nofollow and links were not followed. So I would think the same for rel=canonical as well.

Thanks,

Don