For webpages which may duplicate some or all of their content with other pages (for legitimate reasons), the canonical URL is the URL of the page which search engines should link to.
23
votes
2answers
483 views
How to use rel='canonical' properly
I have 3 URLS that serve the same data:
www.example.com/product/foo
www.example.com/product/foo?id=1
www.example.com?product=foo
For Google's sake I want the URL www.example.com/product/foo to be ...
10
votes
1answer
503 views
How to handle canonical url changes like Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow sites all have pretty urls which include the question title. In the HTML it also have canonical url for that page.
I just found out that when I change the question title, the url is ...
8
votes
2answers
416 views
Canonical'd pages on subdomain showing up in Google search results
You might have heard that we launched Facebook Stack Overflow yesterday.
As part of this, we modified our code to put <meta rel="canonical" ... tags on every question and user on the ...
7
votes
1answer
142 views
Letting search engines know that different links to identical pages stress different parts of the page
When you follow a permalink to a chat message in the Stack Exchange chat, you get a view of the transcript page for the day that contains the particular message. This message is highlighted in yellow, ...
6
votes
2answers
348 views
Is it ok for a canonical link to point to itself?
I've got the canonical:
<link href="http://www.Site.com/Blog/how-to-know-when-this" rel="canonical" />
Is it ok if this is on the page it is pointing to?
Also I'm putting it on all these ...
5
votes
3answers
257 views
Why treat these as different URLs?
These are all strictly different urls:
http://www.example.com/page
http://www.example.com/pAge
http://www.example.com/page/
http://www.example.com/paGE/
I get that it conforms to the strict ISO ...
5
votes
1answer
112 views
Is it valid to have 2, 3, or more canonical tags?
I have seen a major website have more than 2 canonical tags on certain pages.
Here's the page URL:
http://www.example.com/en_GB/shop/details.cfm?R=PRODUCT23:en_GB
Here's the first canonical ...
5
votes
2answers
322 views
SEO and duplicate content for default document
SEO experts sometimes demand that default document, e.g. www.site.com/index.html redirects with 301 to www.site.com, so:
Is that really necessary?
Does Google really penalize that?
5
votes
3answers
236 views
Should a canonical URL be search engine friendly?
I'm using Drupal with search engine friendly URLs. The way Drupal works is that there's two ways to reference a node with SEF URLS switched on:
The SEF way, eg. ...
5
votes
2answers
75 views
Does a plain vanilla site benefit from a “canonical” directive?
So I thought I knew what "canonical" was for.
As I understood it (and to be fair, most of the examples on the web) it avoids search engines seeing foo.htm and foo.htm?parameter=1 as duplicate ...
5
votes
2answers
596 views
Canonical tag on paginated pages?
I noticed that StackOverflow uses a rel=canonical tag on page 2+ of answers. For example, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6470651/creating-a-memory-leak-with-java?page=2&tab=votes#tab-top
...
5
votes
2answers
117 views
When the canonical page itself changes url
This is a continuation of the question: How to handle canonical url changes like Stack Overflow.
Say I have the canon url:
questions/11/car <---canonically-linked-from--- questions/11/
What ...
4
votes
1answer
221 views
www and non www can suffer duplicated content
Do you know if i should use canonical tag, or 301 redirection from
http://mydomain.com to http://www.mydomain.com
To avoid duplicated content penalty in case other pages link to the domain without ...
4
votes
3answers
234 views
Google ranking - difference between example.com and example.com/?ref=id
Does it impact a site's Google ranking if I link to the site with a "referrer" query-string? e.g: example.com/?ref=mysite instead of example.com ?
4
votes
1answer
168 views
Republishing blog posts on a popular website
I started my blog about programming yesterday and in order to promote and increase traffic I submitted my rss to Codeproject which pulls my posts and publishes them at Codeproject.
While it increases ...
4
votes
2answers
504 views
Canonical url for a home page and trailing slashes
My home page could be potentially linked as:
http://example.com
http://example.com/
http://example.com/?ref=1
http://example.com/index.html
http://example.com/index.html?ref=2
(the same page is ...
4
votes
3answers
601 views
Should I use nofollow on internal links that don't need to be crawled?
We have a product navigation engine that allow our customers to filter products based on attributes (size, color, etc.). We are implementing an upgrade that allows them to use "multi-select" ...
4
votes
2answers
140 views
Should rel=canonical point to page one of a set and still have rel=prev/next on the page as well?
I've got a page which displays search results and I've added rel=prev and rel=next meta tags to the page to cover the paging. However, someone is saying I should also add a rel=canonical tag to the ...
4
votes
3answers
447 views
Multiple URL's going to same page - Kosher for Google?
I hear conflicting answers from people about this, and I'm a developer by trade, and my SEO knowledge is not what it should be. Here's my situation:
I run a website that lists hotels, restaurants, ...
4
votes
3answers
193 views
can canonical links be used to make 'duplicate' pages unique?
We have a website that allows users to list items for sale. Think ebay - except we don't actually deal with selling the item, we just list it for sale and provide a way to contact the seller.
Anyhow, ...
4
votes
2answers
412 views
Does the “canonical name” in DNS make any difference to search engines?
Some of our sites are setup with an "a record" to an IP address and some are setup as a cname of a server that then has an "a name" to the same server IP. I want it to be consistent.
Which is the ...
4
votes
1answer
100 views
What Google will do while switching from 301/404 to 200?
Imagine a pagination script with 20 total pages:
articles.php?page=18
What should I do when some third party web site links to a non-existent page?
articles.php?page=21 (page 21 is out of ...
4
votes
3answers
116 views
How should I fix the problem of duplicate content created by my CMS system's manual page alias feature?
My site’s CMS has a manual page alias feature which is in wide use. I recently noticed that the aliased pages and the original pages are showing up in GA with separate traffic.
For example:
...
4
votes
2answers
337 views
Having google index canonicals but users using parameters - correct?
I'm working on a site that has a search facility with multiple parameters that look up property listings. The possible parameters are:
City, Area, Building Type, Min. Bedrooms, Max Rental Price, ...
4
votes
1answer
107 views
Canonical Tag Not Being Recognized
I'm puzzled by the first Google search result in this list.
The first result has the following rel="canonical" tag:
<link rel="canonical" ...
4
votes
1answer
498 views
Correct syntax for Canonical - link or meta tag?
I'm getting a little confused about adding canonical tags to pages. Some (most?) guides suggest using a link tag thusly:
<link rel="canonical" href="www.example.com/somepage" />
but some ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
Pagination, Duplicate Content, and SEO
Please consider a list of items (forum comments, articles, shoes, doesn't matter) which are spread over multiple pages. Different sort orders are supported (by date, by popularity, by price, etc).
...
4
votes
4answers
199 views
Using subdomains or directories for main categories?
I have a website which references places to travel to in the world. Those places are (of course) grouped by countries.
Here is an example of an actual URL of my website:
...
3
votes
5answers
210 views
Can I Use A Canonical Tag Instead of a Redirect for Updated Content?
I have some old articles on my blog that get quite a bit of traffic, but are very outdated. I want to remove them from Google's index using the noindex tag, but I'm not sure what the best approach ...
3
votes
2answers
198 views
falling down Google ranking with canoncial tags and Google site verification
Recently I released this site live, which is a small brochure site for a local catering company.
I took the time to add a canonical <link> tag and also verify the site with Google, so the ...
3
votes
2answers
190 views
How to prevent duplicate content in Google when using state and city in friendlyurl?
I want to provide friendlyurls to my visitors on my venue site.
Visitors should be able to easily type the name of a region to access the venues in that specific region.
Like
...
3
votes
3answers
214 views
How to use the canonical tag for multiregion websites and duplicate content
We want to use the canonical tag for an multiple region website with the same content.
For Example:
www.example.com/services.htm
www.example.com/uk/services.htm
Then if we use the canonical tag ...
3
votes
1answer
140 views
Same page in different “locations” on same site - duplicate content? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is duplicate content and how can I avoid being penalized for it on my site?
The same page, or rather the same content on a page is accessible from two very similar ...
3
votes
2answers
113 views
Similar URLs for same page
I'm working with a site that uses slightly different URLs for the same content. The sitemap lists the pages as:
www.website.com/webpage.html
If you surf through the site the same page is found at:
...
3
votes
2answers
253 views
Which is best for PageRank? When multi-Aliases point to same server, with multi-language folders
Imagine situation where multiple aliases point to the same server, where htacces divides them into their own language folders.
Example:
mywebsite.fr >> /fr/home
mywebsite.de >> ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Best SEO practices for mobile URLs: 301, rel=canonical, or something else?
I am developing a site with a mobile version and am trying to figure the appropriate way to manage the URLs for search engines. So far I've considered:
Having a separate mobile site (m.example.com) ...
3
votes
2answers
272 views
Clarify “canonical” word: Can someone please list the various uses of this word in SEO context, and point out correct or incorrect uses of it?
I think the authoritative use of the word "canonical" in the SEO discipline dates back to this 2006 blog post by Matt Cuts on cononicalization:
...
2
votes
2answers
80 views
Should I add a trailing slash to my canonical link or not?
I'm just working through some PHP to set up a canonical link for each page on one of my websites and I'm wondering what's the correct link for the home page:
Is it:
<link rel="canonical" ...
2
votes
1answer
44 views
What do large review sites do when duplicate content is unavoidable?
Most review sites, for example sites that review games with different platforms, will often have three URL's with identical content, only differing in color schemes, and of course comments. This is ...
2
votes
3answers
50 views
Support same url in different forms
I have seen many websites supporting multiple forms of the same URL. For example consider www.example.com/question1/ OR www.example.com/Question1/ OR www.example.com/QUESTION1/ etc. all lead to one ...
2
votes
1answer
264 views
Does URL encoding create duplicate content?
An SEO expert was testing my site, and noticed that my URLs contained the special character :. He said that would create duplicate content, because google would interpret any url containing : as two ...
2
votes
2answers
43 views
Is there a way I can redirect search engine traffic by U.S. State or Zip Code?
I work for an e-commerce company that operates solely within the United States. However, the price of goods and availability of our products depends on what State or even Zip Code you reside in (we ...
2
votes
2answers
61 views
Canonical url for filtered search results
I have a search function in my app that works like so:
example.com/united-states
example.com/united-states/california
example.com/united-states/california/san-diego
These three different searches ...
2
votes
2answers
82 views
How should I handle two different routes to the same place in a website hierarchy? How will this affect SEO?
guys. I'm considering a complete overhaul of my site, and I have a dilemma. I have multiple ways of getting to the same place, i.e.:
Home > Page 1 > Page 2 > Page 3
and
Home > Page 3
...
2
votes
1answer
175 views
Should I use nodindex, follow or rel canonical?
I have a site that lists offers, promotions from other websites.
Since the offers expire rather quickly I don't save them into my database. I see no point in having a page from 2010 about 30% ...
2
votes
1answer
123 views
rel=“Canonical”: Ranking Benefits ? & specifying for PDF?
I think I understand the basic case for using rel="canonical": to tell Google which is the preferred URI when the same page/content may be accessed via more than one URI.
This helps you avoid ...
2
votes
2answers
428 views
Canonical link to a different domain?
I've got the same page and data available on multiple sites (on different domains), but only one of those sites is really that data's "home" and I want that "home" site to show up in search results ...
2
votes
1answer
214 views
Does Rel=Canonical Pass PR from Links or Just Fix Dup Content
One of the issues with duplicate content is that links can be split across several versions of your page, it was my understanding the a 301 redirect is really the only option for retaining some of the ...
2
votes
1answer
53 views
URL query variables and rel=canonical
I have 14 pages of products on my site. Each page has 10 products. The product pages are powered by Ajax, and I have a filter results feature which lets them only show products with higher ratings, ...
2
votes
2answers
256 views
Duplicated contents warning in Google Webmaster Tools even though I use canonical links
I have some duplicated pages that show the exact same content on different URLS on my website, and I use canonical links to point them all to one of the pages.
So if Page A, B, C, D and E have the ...
