I still don't understand how rel=canonical works. Help?
-
So here's the deal. I write for many different outlets. I also have many different pages on my blog that have duplicates (authorized, of course). On my blog, I have many different pages that redirect to "the original" content.
I've only recently discovered the existence of rel=canonical. However I don't understand how it works. I have very specific questions. Can anyone help?
-
If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's the original. And another website has the same content, used with authorization. If I want to tell search engines that the original content is on MY blog, what can I do? Is the only solution to ask the owner of the other blog to add a rel=canonical in the header of the specific post?
-
If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's NOT the original. Do I simply add rel=canonical to the header, then add a link to the original in the body?
-
If, on my blog, I have THE FIRST 300 WORDS of a blog post, then add a link saying "to read the whole article, click here" with a link pointing to the original, do I need to have a rel=canonical tag somewhere? Does it HAVE to be in the header?
-
-
Hi Cedriklizotte,
No, there is no need to put the second link Click here in the body. Only the first link would be enough to put in the section.
Regards,
Amit Rathi
-
Thank you very much for your detailed answer.
One last question: do I need to put BOTH in the header and Click here in the body? Or am I confused again?
Thanks again
-
Hi Cedriklizotte,
As per your queries, you have recently discovered about the rel="canonical" tag so let's try to understand this first. As you have mentioned that some of the pages redirect to the "original content". So its better to put the rel="canonical" tag to the original link because that'll be the preferred URL when it comes to tell the search engines about which page to consider as the "original content". So this code would look like:
And put this code in the section of the page.
Now, let's try to answer your questions one by one:
Question: If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's the original. And another website has the same content, used with authorization. If I want to tell search engines that the original content is on MY blog, what can I do? Is the only solution to ask the owner of the other blog to add a rel=canonical in the header of the specific post?
Answer: In this scenario, as you suggested its better to ask the owner of the other blog to add a rel=canonical with the link to your blog in the section of the specific post.
Question: If, on my blog, I have a blog post that's NOT the original. Do I simply add rel=canonical to the header, then add a link to the original in the body?
Answer: You should mark up the page with the rel=canonical tag in the section in the format that I have mentioned.
If the body has a CTA (Call To Action) button that takes to the original post then put the link there and no need to put rel=canonical tag there because you have already put the rel=canonical tag in that page with the preferred URL or original link.
Question: If, on my blog, I have THE FIRST 300 WORDS of a blog post, then add a link saying "to read the whole article, click here" with a link pointing to the original, do I need to have a rel=canonical tag somewhere? Does it HAVE to be in the header?
Answer: Yes, better to put the rel=canonical in the header.
Question: Can rel=canonical be used in the
_[Answer: Yes, rel=canonical is always used in the <href=>element format of a link in order to tell search engines that the original of content is actually on the other blog.</href=>
Question: What penalties are included with having duplicate content of my work everywhere on the web? I've been trying to find specifics, but can't.
Answer: Just check this link: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html from Google Webmasters blog about the duplicate content penalties and you'll get a fair idea about the specifics.
I hope this would help.
Regards,
Amit Rathi](code)_
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 Question For Different Languages
My client has a site that supports different languages in the following structure: www.domain.com - English version www.domain.com/IT - Italian version www.domain/DE - German version etc.... I have set the languages up within Webmaster Tools but do I need to set up the canonical tag for all internal pages as they are basically the same but just in a different language i.e. www.domain.com/index.php is the same as www.domain.com/DE/index.php but in a different language. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bigfootdigital0 -
Can soft 404's hurt my rankings?
This post mainly pertains to soft 404's but I recently dropped a few ranks in my main keyword which I have maintained prior to this my better rank for well over 2 years. I participate in NO BLACKHAT and obtain links naturally. I want to describe a few issues that happened prior to my ranking dropping and see what you guys think. I started to receive about a week prior to my ranks dropping DNS issues with GWT. It was weird because when I would use Goole Fetch on those pages they would return just fine so I was not sure what was happening there. I use Google page speed server which did in fact decrease my load time (YEAH!!) so that was cool. About 1 week prior to my rankings dropping I enabled godaddy's Website Accelerator as well thinking that could help even more. Because of this I thought maybe this had something to do with my DNS issues with Google so I decided to turn off my website accelerator with Godaddy and just leave my Google pagespeed service on. I figure I don't need 2 of them anyways IMO. Also at the same time I started to receive a ton (31,000+) html errors with duplicate metadescriptions and titles. I discovered I had an error with my code which was displaying 2 different sets of descriptions and titles for each of these pages. I since then have fixed the issue and waiting for Google to index those pages. Here is were I think I might have been hurting from the drop in rankings. Some months ago (maybe 2) I decided to redirect my 404's to my homepage. Yes I know this is not good now and I have created a proper 404 page which returns the 404 code. I recently started getting a ton of Soft 404 errors in GWT which is what brought my attention to this issue. My question is, could my action of redirecting my users to my homepage as a 404 which obviously was returning a 200 on a page that did not exist be possibly the culprit to my ranks dropping?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich1 -
Where aren't on page reports generated for all of my keywords?
I have 39 targetted keywords, yet only 10 on-page reports are generated. My site has about 100 pages. Why don't I see reports for all of my pages?
On-Page Optimization | | mynton0 -
Sold Products appear as duplicate pages 'Page Not Found' ???
Hi there, I'm down to just 6 duplicate page warnings but I'm not sure how to deal with this one: Information Page Not Found! http://www.vintageheirloom.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=6 My Ecommerce shopping site products are unique, 1 of a kind. So once one product has sold and been delivered we take the product off our website, hence the Information Page Not Found! As I understand when search engines re-index these warnings will drop off but new sold products would replace them. So redirecting seems like hard work and never ending. Is it ok to ignore these warnings? Thanks Mozzers..
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Canonical Tag for Ecommerce Site
I implemented a canonical tag on each product page for my clients ecommerce site and my rankings tanked. Has this happened to anyone else? If so, when can I expect rank to return?
On-Page Optimization | | DynoSaur0 -
Not making a change of the 100's in crawl Diagnostic
Based on the PRO crawl Diagnostics – if we don’t make a change on 1 page, does that just affect the SEO on that one page, or does it affect the SEO on all pages of the site? E.g. If we get a “Too many on page links” for a certain page that we don’t really want to rank for – does not fixing that particlaur page affect the site as a whole? Hope I explained this ok..
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Do we need to use the canonical tag on non-indexed pages?
Hi there I have been working in / learning SEO for just over a year, coming from a non dev background, so there are still plenty of the finer points on-page points I am working on. Slowly building up confidence and knowledge with the great SEOMoz as a reference! We are working on this site http://www.preciseuk.co.uk (we are still tweaking the tags and content by the way- not finished yet!) Because a lot of the information is within accordians, a page is generated for each tab of the accordian expanded, for example: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php is the main page but then you also have: http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=0 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=1 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=2 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=3 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=4 http://www.preciseuk.co.uk/facilities-management.php?tab=5 All of which are in the same file. According to the crawl test, these pages are not indexed. Because it is all in one file, should we add the canonical tag to it, so that this is replicated in all the tab pages that are generated? eg. Thanks in advance for your help! Liz OneResult
On-Page Optimization | | oneresult
[email protected]2 -
Are xml sitemaps still in use today?
Hi, Are you still using XML sitemaps today? If yes, does it bring any benefit to your website like faster indexing of webpages or better rankings? Are you using special features like video sitemaps or sitemap index files? Best regards, Tobias
On-Page Optimization | | Tobiask-1215731