Is there a work around for Rel Canonical without header access?
-
In my work as an SEO writer, I work closely with web designers and usually have behind the scenes access.
However, the last three clients who hired me have web designers that are not allowing admin access to anyone else (including the clients) outside of their companies/small business.
Is there a work around for the Rel Canonical element that usually is placed in the header? I am using All-In-One-SEO plug-in to address part of this issue.
Sage advice or discussion on this is appreciated!
-
I totally understand, I've been spoiled by working with web designers that are very customer service oriented and who have not held their customers hostage...so this has been very disheartening on several levels.
All three of the clients have been referred to other web designers per my recommendation. One has moved, one is waiting for a little while, and the other has not decided yet.
I have managed to do some canonical meta work using the plug-in and appreciate your sharing the other options available.
-
I hate to say this, but I'm going to, because I have no tolerance for design companies and hosting companies who hold clients hostage (and I've worked at a design/hosting company, so I don't buy 98% of the excuses for that behavior)...
Is there any way to hack the plug-in or META data, based on the access you DO have. For example, the META description sits in the header. What if you entered a description like:
This is my meta description.">
Short of that, there's not a lot you can do with no access. Push comes to shove, you may have to let the client know that, to do your job, they need to divorce the design from the hosting. A WordPress CMS can live anywhere - there's no reason the design company should be sitting on it.
Actually, just for reference, I'll add that there are other solutions, but they're usually very technical and somewhat costly. For example, some SEO companies have proxy hardware/software that sits on top of existing sites. What it basically does is inject code on top of what gets served up by the web server. That way, the SEO company can add tags, etc. without direct access to the server. You still need access to the host, though (or cooperation), and typically this is an enterprise-level solution (in other words, $$$).
-
Thanks for chiming in. Unfortunately, access is a big issue for the web design company and so the only changes I can get in are those I can do using the plug-in and some of the meta fields. Just attempting to prevent dilution and drive the link juice to the main content rather than the transient/time contingent information.
It is a private site design with integration on a Word Press CMS. I actually think the design work is awesome but without the access I am used to for doing my work, it makes it difficult to make adjustments as I need to.
-
Unfortunately, if you really have no access at all, there's isn't much you can do. The best alternative to a canonical tag, in most cases, is a 301-redirect, and you'd need some kind of access for that, too (hosting account, server access, .htaccess rights, etc.).
It depends a lot on the situation, of course. If you're just trying to get some bad URLs out of the index, you could try parameter blocking in Google Webmaster Tools. If you have Robots.txt access, that might open up some other options (although it's limited and only an alternative in a couple of cases).
I assume this is some sort of CMS system or a hosted solution?
What are you trying to achieve/solve with the canonical?
-
Thanks for responding, already asked and they won't budge.
They also are using some of my seo nuances on a competitive site in the same market. Don't trust them any more with those seo details so hoping for other ideas.
-
As far as I know, there is not a way to do this. It's also kind of really strange they won't open up the template to be altered. Could you ask them for access - or just provide them the code to use?
Even if there WAS a way to use rel=canconical in a nonstandard way - I don't think you would want to do that - as it may not be supported across all engines.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=64f490887853e7a2&hl=en
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 Tags Before HTTPS MIgration
Hi Guys I previously asked a question that was helpfully answered on this forum, but I have just one last question to ask. I'm migrating a site tomorrow from http to https. My one question is that it was mentioned that I may need to "add canonical tags to the http pages, pointing to their https equivalent prior to putting the server level redirect in place. This is to ensure that you won't be causing yourself issues if the redirect fails for any reason." This is an e-commerce site with a number of links, is there a quick way of doing this? Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | ruislip180 -
Duplicate content - working with CMS constraints
Hi, We use an industry-specific CMS and I'm struggling to figure out how we can fix duplicate content issues. Thankfully, the vendor has agreed to work on 301 vs 302 redirects. However, they aren't currently able to give us the ability to add rel=canonical tags to page headers (we've put it in their "suggestion box" which tends to take a long time, if ever, to materialize). My understanding is that the tag will not be recognized if it's in the body code, correct? (aka the part of the page we can edit from the CMS) Is there anything else I can do?
Technical SEO | | combska0 -
Despite canonical duplicate content in WMT
Hi, 2 weeks ago we've made big changes in title and meta descriptions. To solve the missing title and descriptions. Also set the right canonical. Now i see that in WMT despite the canonical it shows duplicates in meta descriptions and titles. i've setup the canonical like this:
Technical SEO | | Leonie-Kramer
1. url: www.domainname.com/category/listing-family/productname
2. url: www.domainname.com/category/listing-family/productname-more-info The canonical on both pages is like this: I'm aware of creating duplicate titles and descriptions, caused by the cms we use and also caused by wrong structure of category/products (we'll solve that nest year) that's why i wanted the canonical, but now it's not going any better, did i do something wrong with the canonical?0 -
Meta data & xml sitemaps for mobile sites when using rel="canonical"/rel="alternate" annotations
When using rel="canonical" and rel="alternate" annotations between mobile and desktop sites (rel="canonical" on mobile, pointing to desktop, and rel="alternate" on desktop pointing to mobile), what are everyone's thoughts on using meta data on the mobile site? Is it necessary? And also, what is the common consensus on using a separate mobile xml sitemap?
Technical SEO | | 4Ps0 -
Rel Canonical for Miva Merchant
Due to necessary pagination on the site that sells thousands of products, and due to products being assigned to more than one category in the Miva Merchant store, we have been battling duplicate content, and Meta tag issues. I asked lot of questions on the Miva forum on how to use rel canonical in Miva, and got this script below to use. It was supposed to solve all of our problems, but now it seems that every page of the site is under Rel Canonical Notices in the Crawl Diagnostics. I am not sure I am reading the Notices correctly, and if we achieved what we want or not. Here is an example of one listing: URL: http://www.domain.com/ABUS.html
Technical SEO | | 2CDevGroup
Tag Value: http://www.domain.com/
Page Authority: 28
Linking Root Domains: 1 | | | | |0 -
Canonical usage and duplicate content
Hi We have a lot of pages about areas like ie. "Mallorca" (domain.com/Spain/Mallorca), with tabbed pages like "excursion" (domain.com/spain/Mallorca/excursions) and "car rental" (domain.com/Spain/Mallorca/car-rental) etc. The text on ie the "car rental"-page is very similar on Mallorca and Rhodos, and seomoz marks these as duplicate content. This happens on "car rental", "map", "weather" etc. which not have a lot of text but images and google maps inserted. Could i use rel=nex/prev/canonical to gather the information from the tabbed pages? That could show google that the Rhodos-map page is related to Rhodos and not Mallorca. Is that all wrong or/and is there a better way to do this? Thanks, Alsvik
Technical SEO | | alsvik0 -
Rel="canonical" and rewrite
Hi, I'm going to describe a scenario on one of my sites, I was wondering if someone could tell me what is the correct use of rel="canonical" here. Suppose I have a rewrite rule that has a rule like this: RewriteRule ^Online-Games /main/index.php So, in the index file, do I set the rel="canonical" to Online-Games or /main/index.php? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | webtarget0