Canonical - unexpected page ranking
-
We are getting good ranking for an unexpected page, rathewr than the one we were trying to get ranking for.
Should we put a canonical on the 'unexpected page' to the page we would like to receive the ranking for - or do we risk losing the ranking?
Any suggestions welcomed.
Ian
-
Thanks Martin, looked at Moz's guide on Canonicals. Have a much clearer view of them now. Thanks for the feedback we will work on the pages we want to rank and monitor them.
Ian
-
Full support for this answer
-
Hi Ian,
Pointing the canonical tag to the right URL that you want to rank won't work like you're hoping for and is not what the canonical tag is at the end meant to do. What I would focus on is optimizing the page that you want to rank, for a start you likely should look into adding a link from the current ranking page to the one that you want to start ranking, if you haven't already done that. At the end that's going to help you with both ranks the right page, but also might help the second page to be visible in the top 10 so you take multiple spots for an increased share of voice.
Martijn.
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
-
Why rankings dropped from 2 page to 8th page and no penalization?
Dear Sirs, a client of mine for more than 7 years used to have his home page (www.egrecia.es) between 1st and 2nd page in the Google Serps and suddenly went down to 8 page. The keyword in question is "Viajes a Grecia". It has a good link profile as we have built links in good newspapers from Spain, and according to Moz it has a 99% on-page optimization for that keyword, why why why ??? What could I do to solve this? PD: It has more than 20 other keywords in 1st position, so why this one went so far down? Thank you in advance !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tintanus0 -
How I can improve my website On page and Off page
My Website is guitarcontrol.com, I have very strong competition in market. Please advice me the list of improvements on my websites. In regarding ON page, Linkbuiding and Social media. What I can do to improve my website ranking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zoe.wilson170 -
Do I need to use rel="canonical" on pages with no external links?
I know having rel="canonical" for each page on my website is not a bad practice... but how necessary is it for pages that don't have any external links pointing to them? I have my own opinions on this, to be fair - but I'd love to get a consensus before I start trying to customize which URLs have/don't have it included. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Netrepid0 -
What happen if a canonical tag points to a noindex page?
Hello,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
I have question. We have hundreds of affiliates that have implemented our datafeed on their websites, and to avoid duplicate content issues we are requiring them to put a canonical tag on their own product pages pointing to our own original product page. So, for example, if an affiliate has a page about our Product 101, they will have to add a canonical tag pointing to the corresponding product page on our own website: www.ourwebsite.com/products/product101 Now, since many of our product pages have defined a "noindex" tag (due to Panda issues), may that be a problem? In other words: what kind of problems could cause having our affiliates defining a canonical tag on their own product pages pointing to the original product page on our website which have a "noindex" met tag defined? Maybe it is a stupid question we shouldn't worry about, but any thoughts about this scenario are very welcome! Thank you in advance.0 -
Home page sudden drop in rank, but not others.
Over the weekend, I noticed "www.thematstore.com" drop out of the search results for "chair mats", where previously it was between 10-12 ranked. The other pages on the domain have remained the same in regards to rankings for their intended keywords. The only thing I changed (on Nov 29th) is the title tag from "Chair Mats - Commercial Quality Chair Mats, Custom Made", to "Chair Mats - Best Custom Chair Mats, Commercial Quality". I know there is a lot that needs to be done on the site, and the site architecture is a bit of a mess (I recommended building a new site)... but I was hoping to gradually fix these issues without gambling with a rank drop. Not sure why the home page all of the sudden dropped out, any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Why is google ranking me higher for pages that aren't optimised for keywords those that are?
I am finding that our homepage and other pages are being ranked higher against keywords that we have optimised other pages for. e.g Keyword: Luxury Towels Google Ranks our homepage http://www.towelsrus.co.uk at 20 for this and the page I am trying to rank for it is nowhere to be seen http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/sport-spa/luxury-towels/catlist_fnct498.htm Why is this and is this why our position for certain keywords fluctuates? How do I remedy this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Pricing Page vs. No Pricing Page
There are many SEO sites out there that have an SEO Pricing page, IMO this is BS. A SEO company cannot give every person the same quote for diffirent keywords. However, this is something we are currently debating. I don't want a pricing page, because it's a page full of lies. My coworker thinks it is a good idea, and that users look for a pricing page. Suggestions? If I had to build one (which I am debating against) is it better to just explain why pricing can be tricky? or to BS them like most sites do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
Why does this 1-page doorway rank #2?
Search on "santa cruz custom cabinets." In my SERPs, I'm seeing exact match santacruzcustomcabinets.com rank #2. This is a 1-page site provided by Yellow Book as part of an ad it sold to this cabinet shop. The site has no other pages, no inbound links, etc. So much for Google saying it's going to turn down the meter on exact match domains because that's all I see this website, if you want to call it that, has going for it. what do you see? Why is it ranked so high? Why is it above the site below it for example? And why doesn't Google lower the boom on Yellow Book for these doorway pages? Thought you'd all find this interesting. Any comments?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KatMouse0