Are pages with a canonical tag indexed?
-
Hello here,
here are my questions for you related to the canonical tag:
1. If I put online a new webpage with a canonical tag pointing to a different page, will this new page be indexed by Google and will I be able to find it in the index?
2. If instead I apply the canonical tag to a page already in the index, will this page be removed from the index?
Thank you in advance for any insights!
Fabrizio
-
Yes, I will look into doing that on GWT.
Was a nice and useful chat indeed! Thank you again.
-
Sorry Fabrizio I got mad with my old answer
that canonical doesn't make sense with a noindex, with noindex follow.you're completely fine.
Summing up I think that you have many parameters so you should try to write them down and define the role of each one.
Then add them in GWT and choose there which are the ones which doesn't add any value and which you want to "block" (instead of putting a noindex).
The valuable ones (the one which adds value and changes content) should contain the self canonical and paginated next/prev. If you can get rid of unesful parameters it could be better so to have cleaner and shorter urls.
Just be sure that you're mainly using the most important parameters so you're consistent with your strategy.
Hope this will clear your doubts, it was a nice chat!
-
Yes, actually I could get rid of the lpg parameter (it wasn't really needed!), so now the tag definitions are (for the 3rd page of the Guitar index):
<LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">next</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">prev</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3)">
Now, the only doubt I still have is to add or not add the noindex tag to the page when it is requested to be displayed in a different way (such as the "table view" or a different item display order). In my opinion, if I stick with the canonical tag I don't need a noindex directive. What do you think?
-
Yeah, to be fair, I'm not clear on what all of the additional parameters (like "lpg=") do, so this can get tricky fast. Basically, look at it this way:
If the URL is:
example.com/page=3?param=xThen the tags should point to:
Rel=prev:
example.com/page=2?param=xRel=next:
example.com/page=4?param=xRel=canonical:
example.com/page=3 (no parameters)Some parameters may not be indexed and/or functional, though, so individual cases can vary. You may choose to ignore some parameters in Google Webmaster Tools, for example. It gets tricky as the parameter list grows.
-
Mememax, after thinking I have some doubts though about what you have suggested.
Why I want to put a noindex tag to the page displaying the list in "table view" if I already have a canonical tag pointing to the "regular view" page? Wouldn't the canonical tag be enough for the purpose of telling that the "real" canonical page is the "regular view" version? I am asking this because if I want to apply a noindex tag to that kind of different view, I may want to do the same to the list displayed with a different order, and for any other different way of displaying the list, etc... hence just using the canonical tag would be appropriate, pointing always to the "regular list" view, no matter what kind of "filtering" or "different view' option is selected. What do you think?
In other words, I don't think I need to include a noindex tag for any different kind of view the user requests as long as I provide a canonical tag pointing to the regular view list.
Am I correct?
-
Yes, thank you Mememax, I agree with you 100%. That makes perfect sense and I will work on that tomorrow morning. I am eager to know Dr. Peter thoughts and confirmation.
On my side, I think I got it cleared-up now. Thank you very much again!
-
Thank you ! That makes sense now.
-
Hey Fabrizio, I think that what Google states in their guidelines is that you have two choices:
- if you have a view all page, you should noindex and follow all your other pages so google will deliver only that page
- if you don't have a view all page or if you prefer to show paginated series (i.e. to make pages lighter and quicker to deliver to users) you may consider to use rel next/prev.
In this second case it may happen that you also add filters or session ids in the urls of those pages, in that case you should consider adding a self referentail canonical tag to avoid duplicates. But this is only if you cover this case, if you're looking to canonicalize correctly your paginated series you may not use the self canonical tag, because if not properly implemented this may get you a bit of extra work.
In this page for example
I found this:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=0">
Which I don't think is what you want to do.
Also if you set the page to view as a table: your url changes to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1
and while the canonical should remain the same (well done but I think you should get rid of the lpg parameter in the canonical), the rel next prev should change accordingly IMO.
So instead of being:
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60you should offer the next and prev page of the filtered url:
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60&viewlistflag=1
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20&viewlistflag=1Or in this case (since the content is almost the same you may consider the list page as the canonical of the table one putting there a noindex.
Summing up, IMO: in this page http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3
you'll have:
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
(optional) a self canonical to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3In this page (and in other filtered pages if you have apply the same idea):
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1You'll have:
noindex,follow and canonical to the list page:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3maybe dr peter can correct me if I'm wrong but I think this should be more consistent like this. Sorry for the huge answer
-
Wow, yes - sorry about that. I've updated it. Google original write-up actually covers this case, too (it's toward the end):
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
-
Please, have a look at the page below, I have modified the canonical tag as suggested:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40
Is that correct?
Thank you again very much.
-
Thank you Peter, I guess you meant to have the "canonical" tag as last tag in your example above, and also the previous rel=next and rel=prev definitions should be inverted:
Am I correct? That makes sense. If so, I will update my site to reflect this.
Thank you for the link!
-
This gets tricky fast. Google currently wants rel=prev/next to contain the parameters currently in use (like sorts) for the page you're on and then wants you rel-canonical to the non-parameterized version. So, if the URL is:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40
...then the tags should be...
Yeah, it's a bit strange. They have suggested that it's ok to rel-canonical to a "View All" page, but with the kind of product volume you have, that's generally a bad idea (for users and search). The have specifically recommended against setting rel-canonical to Page 1 of search results, especially if you use rel=prev/next.
Rel=prev/next will still show pages in the index, but I've found it to work pretty well. The other option is the more classic approach to simple META NOINDEX, FOLLOW pages 2+. That can still be effective, but it's getting less common.
Adam Audette has generally strong posts about this topic - here's a good, recent one:
http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284
-
Thank you for your post, and I think you have just opened a doubt I had, and that's exactly what also concerned me.
Have a look at this typical category page of ours:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html
For that category pagination, I have implemented the rel=prev/next as suggested by Google, but being afraid to be penalized for duplicate content, I also put a canonical tag pointing at the first page of that index. Should I have put the canonical tag pointing to the page series itself?
Something like:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2
for the second page instead of the general:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html
as I am currently doing?
Thanks!
-
I have to disagree on this one. If Google honors a canonical tag, the non-canonical page will generally disappear from the index, at least inasmuch as we can measure it (with "site:", getting it to rank, etc.). It's a strong signal in many cases.
This is part of the reason Google introduced rel=prev/next for paginated content. With canonical, pages in the series aren't usually able to rank. Rel=prev/next allows them to rank without clogging up the index (theoretically). For search pagination, it's generally a better solution.
If your paginated content is still showing in large quantities in the index, Google may not be honoring the canonical tag properly, and they could be causing duplicate content issues. It depends on the implementation, but they recommend these days that you don't canonical to the first page of search results. Google may choose to ignore the tag in some cases.
-
Thank you very much, that makes perfect sense. In my case, I am talking exactly about paginated content, and that's probably why all pages are in the index despite they are canonicalized to point to the main page. So, I guess that even if you have thousands of paginated pages indexed (mine is a pretty big e-commerce website), that's not going to be an issue. Am I right?
-
Normally the only thing which will prevent a page from ranking is noindex tag. If you don't want to have it indexed just noindex it, if that page has been laready indexed, put the noindex tag and delete from index using GWT option.
Concerning the canonical tag thing, it will consolidate the seo value in one page but it won't prevent those page to appear in rankings, however you may have two cases:
- the two or more pages are identical. In that case google may accept the canonicalization and show always the original page.
- the two or more pages are slightly different, it's the case of paginated pages which are canonicalized using rel next/prev. In that sense the whole value will be consolidated in page 1 but then the page which will be shown in the rankings will be the one which responds to that query, for example if someone is looking for blue glass, google will return the page which shows blue glass listing if that's different from the first one.
Hope this may help you!
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
-
Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page
We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shabbirmoosa0 -
Should Schema.org Tags go on every page?
Happy Monday Moz World! I am just wondering what are some best practices when using Schema.org Tags. For Example, I have a client who provides multiple services and provides unique content on each webpage. The design of each of the webpagesare unique, and conveys information differently. My question is: If each page of a company's website has unique content that describes a service or product, could I essentially change the url & description of the Schema Tag so that each of my pages are indexable by relationship to that page's content? Thanks ahead of time for the great responses! B/R Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingChimp100 -
PR Dilution and Number of Pages Indexed
Hi Mozzers, My client is really pushing for me to get thousands, if not millions of pages indexed through the use of long-tail keywords. I know that I can probably get quite a few of them into Google, but will this dilute the PR on my site? These pages would be worthwhile in that if anyone actually visits them, there is a solid chance they will convert to a lead do to the nature of the long-tail keywords. My suggestion is to run all the keywords for these thousands of pages through adwords to check the number of queries and only create pages for the ones which actually receive searches. What do you guys think? I know that the content needs to have value and can't be scraped/low-quality and pulling these pages out of my butt won't end well, but I need solid evidence to make a case either for or against it to my clients.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
How can I see all the pages google has indexed for my site?
Hi mozers, In WMT google says total indexed pages = 5080. If I do a site:domain.com commard it says 6080 results. But I've only got 2000 pages in my site that should be indexed. So I would like to see all the pages they have indexed so I can consider noindexing them or 404ing them. Many thanks, Julian.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | julianhearn0 -
Is it possible to "undo" canonical tags as unique content is created?
We will soon be launching an education site that teaches people how to drive (not really the topic, but it will do). We plan on being content rich and have plans to expand into several "schools" of driving. Currently, content falls into a number of categories, for example rules of the road, shifting gears, safety, etc. We are going to group content into general categories that apply broadly, and then into "schools" where the content is meant to be consumed in a specific order. So, for example, some URLs in general categories may be: drivingschool.com/safety drivingschool.com/rules-of-the-road drivingschool.com/shifting-gears etc. Then, schools will be available for specific types of vehicles. For example, drivingschool.com/cars drivingschool.com/motorbikes etc. We will provide lessons at the school level, and in the general categories. This is where it gets tricky. If people are looking for general content, then we want them to find pages in the general categories (for example, drivingschool.com/rules-of-the-road/traffic-signs). However, we have very similar content within each of the schools (for example, drivingschool.com/motorbikes/rules-of-the-road/traffic-signs). As you could imagine, sometimes the content is very unique between the various schools and the general category (such as in shifting), but often it is very similar or even nearly duplicate (as in the example above). The problem is that in the schools we want to say at the end of the lesson, "after this lesson, take the next lesson about speed limits for motorcycles" so there is a very logical click-path through the school. Unfortunately this creates potential duplicate content issues. The best solution I've come up with is to include a canonical tag (pointing to the general version of the page) whenever there is content that is virtually identical. There will be cases though where we adjust the content "down the road" 🙂 to be more unique and more specific for the school. At that time we'd want to remove the canonical tag. So two questions: Does anyone have any better ideas of how to handle this duplicate content? If we implement canonical tags now, and in 6 months update content to be more school-specific, will "undoing" the canonical tag (and even adding a self-referential tag) work for SEO? I really hope someone has some insight into this! Many thanks (in advance).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JessicaB0 -
Best practice for removing indexed internal search pages from Google?
Hi Mozzers I know that it’s best practice to block Google from indexing internal search pages, but what’s best practice when “the damage is done”? I have a project where a substantial part of our visitors and income lands on an internal search page, because Google has indexed them (about 3 %). I would like to block Google from indexing the search pages via the meta noindex,follow tag because: Google Guidelines: “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.” http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 Bad user experience The search pages are (probably) stealing rankings from our real landing pages Webmaster Notification: “Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site” with links to our internal search results I want to use the meta tag to keep the link juice flowing. Do you recommend using the robots.txt instead? If yes, why? Should we just go dark on the internal search pages, or how shall we proceed with blocking them? I’m looking forward to your answer! Edit: Google have currently indexed several million of our internal search pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HrThomsen0 -
Hash as a Replacement for Absolute URL in Canonical Tags?
Any idea why companies like Skechers would be doing this: http://screencast.com/t/ooEkATGN7EX ? I suppose it makes sense, but I've never seen it done before. If this works, why on earth would we be using absolute URLs still?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevewiideman0 -
Best way to stop pages being indexed and keeping PageRank
If for example on a discussion forum, what would be the best way to stop pages such as the posting page (where a user posts a topic or message) from being indexed AND not diluting PageRank too? If we added them to the Disallow on robots.txt, would pagerank still flow through the links to those blocked pages or would it stay concentrated on the linking page? Your ideas and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640