Is this causing me to drop in rank?
-
Today I noticed I was dropping (pretty big jump) for some keywords, so I checked out the source of a page, and noticed that my source code has two canonical urls. One to the home page, and one to the /page-title.
I just changed themes recently, and the dropped happened after I changed themes.
Is this what's causing me to drop in rank for certain terms? You can view the source here:
-
That was great content sir ! i added the comments there - adding the same question here also !
This article is very huge and will print it for better understanding !
My problem with the blog is the Duplicate content is marked as for Search Terms or Tags ! like i have written 10 post about design art, i added tags as "design art" in the tag form. using WordPress.org self hosted website !
-
I'm afraid there's no one, easy answer. I have a comprehensive post about dupe content here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
-
Peter, I just discovered I have tons of duplicate content & titles. How can I fix them? It is hurting.
-
Yeah, looks like I was of no use at all
I'm glad it's working. -
I'm seeing the bad canonical tag gone now. Are you seeing the same thing? Maybe just had a short-term caching issue.
-
Nope, no content delivery network. This is crazy. No idea what's happening.
-
Nope, no content delivery network. This is crazy. No idea what's happening.
-
We are definitely not seeing the same thing. Are you perchance using a content delivery network? It might just take some time to update if so.
I suggest we both keep an eye on it and make sure that it's fixed for both of us going forward
-
@Carson,
This is so odd. When I look at the page, I see this. Am I seeing something different than what you are seeing?
-
I see the same as you for that post, but I still see the canoncial on posts like this:
This is why I'm thinking you might have fixed it, and we're just seeing an old static version of the page. Re-caching the pages and/or updating posts might fix it up.
-
What's strange is when I view the source on that page, I don't see it:
-
Yes, I do. I'm been clearing the cache.
-
If you guys are both seeing it, I'm really confused. When I look at my source code, I see this:
-
I cleared my cache and I still see it on posts. I suppose it's worth asking if you have a caching/site speed plugin?
-
Just tried a different browser. Weird thing is that I'm seeing it on some pages, but not on others. For example. it's here still:
-
Nope...
-
Are there any admin settings in your theme itself? You may something built in that's re-adding the tag at a higher level in the code. Could be an admin flag needs to be reset.
-
I'm still seeing it as well. When you re-visit header.php now, is the line you deleted still gone?
-
Really? Do you mind clearing your cache and trying again? When I look I'm seeing just the one (correct) canonical.
-
Really? Do you mind clearing your cache and trying again? When I look I'm seeing just the one (correct) canonical.
-
Oh - yeah - that definitely doesn't look good. Probably a holdover from the template. You could just comment it out, but dumping it completely is fine, I suspect.
Unfortunately, I'm still seeing the canonical in the pages I'm checking (?)
-
Thanks Carson,
It looks like I may have figured it out. I checked out the header.php file and noticed this: . So I just deleted it, and it seems to be working fine.
-
Hi there,
Make sure to check any plugins first. Some themes and plugins offer the option to add any code you like to the head - it sounds like there might be a static canonical tag in a field like this. That would be my first thought - let me know if I can be of assistance in fixing this up.
Thanks,
Carson
-
No problem. Thanks!
-
Unfortunately, I'm not a WordPress expert by any means. I'll ping the team.
-
yelp. When I first found the problem, I figured out the theme and the plug in were both adding a canonical url, so I took out the function in the theme to add the canonical url. Everything was working when you looked at the post the other day and noticed there was only 1 canonical url. But today I was looking at some code, and noticed it was back to 2 on each one.
What do you suggest looking at / check out?
-
I'm seeing the 2 canonical tags, but unfortunately, there's almost no way to tell from the outside why the top one is being added. It looks like your plug-in is working correctly. This is a WordPress-based site, correct?
-
@Peter,
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason the canonical is missing up again. All of the pages are using my home page as the canonical url again. No idea what is happening. Can you tell what's going on?
-
@Peter,
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason the canonical is missing up again. All of the pages are using my home page as the canonical url again. No idea what is happening. Can you tell what's going on?
-
Same here. Thanks.
Hope you are doing well.
-
You've got the self-referencing canonical tags in place, which is about the best fix - unfortunately, there's no way to "undo" a bad canonical other than put a good canonical in its place. Hopefully, Google only picked up a few and, given the popularity of your site, they'll re-index pretty quickly.
-
Yes, I caught it. And it did pick up the canonical to the home page...I lost rank on a ton of key words. I'm hoping it gets fixed in the next index.
-
Did you fix it? I'm only seeing one canonical now. That would definitely be bad - if Google picked up the canonical to the home-page, you could collapse a ton of pages into one and effectively knock them out of the index (and, by extension, any ability to rank).
-
Thanks for the reply, but in this case I don't think that would apply.
What's happening is the them is putting 2 canonical urls into each post. The url of the current page, and the home page. So google is getting confused. Trying to fix it now.
-
Usually when you change themes you can have a temporary drop down, this is normal.
Please, read this Q&A there is a very good answer from EGOL: http://www.seomoz.org/q/seo-template-for-new-website
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
-
Website Redesign & Ensuring Minimal Traffic/Rankings Lost
Hi there, We have undergone a website redesign (mycompany.com) and our site is ready to go live however the new website is built on a different platform so all of our blog pages will not be copied over - to avoid a large web developer expense. So our intention is to then leave all the blog pages as (on the old web design) but move it to the domain blog.mycompany.com with 301 redirects inserted on mycompany.com for each blog post pointing to the corresponding blog.mycompany.com. Is there anything else we should do to ensure minimal traffic/rankings are lost? Thank you so much for your help.
Web Design | | amitbroide0 -
Migrating Magento site to Shopify Plus without dropping in SERPS
We have been looking at moving our ecommerce store www.pretavoir.co.uk from Magento to Shopify Plus. However, as we rank quite well at present we are interested in hearing experience others may have had making this change and also any advice that you may have... Also, any general comments on Shopify appreciated..
Web Design | | seanmccauley0 -
How would a redesign, content update and URL change affect ranking?
Hi guys, I have a question that I suspect there is no simple true or false answer to, but perhaps someone has done the same thing as we're pondering wether or not to do? We're taking over an existing site that ranks very well on all the important keywords and is obviously very well liked by Google. The site is today hosted on a sub-domain (xxx.domain.com). When taking over, we'll have to redesign the site and recreate most of the content on the site (unique). The site structure, URLs, incoming links etc. will remain exactly the same. Since we are recreating the site, we also have the opportunity to move the site off the sub-domain and on to the main domain (domain.com/xxx - 85/100 Moz rank) and do a 301 Permanent Redirect on all old URLs. Our long-time experience is that content on the main domain, ranks way better than the sub-domain. The big question is wether or not Google will punish us for both changing the content and the location of the site at the same time? Cheers!
Web Design | | mattbs
Matt0 -
Looking to remove SSL because it is causing very slow website download speeds. Does WP have a plugin that redirects SSL urls to non SSL urls?
After some extended debate with our web development team we are considering dropping the SSL from our website because it is adding almost 2 additional seconds to our download speeds. We know there is a SEO boost from having a SSL but we believe the extended download speeds maybe outweighing the benefit. However we are concerned about the SEO implications of having no method possible of redirect SSL to non SSL webpages. Does anybody know of a Wordpress Plugin that can force redirect SSL urls to non SSL urls?
Web Design | | RosemaryB0 -
Google tag manager on blocked beta site - will it phone home to Google and cause site to get indexed?
We want to develop a beta site, in a directory with the robots.txt blocking bots. We want to include the Google Tag Manager tags and event layer tracking code on this beta site. My question is that by including the Google Tag Manager code, that phones home to Google, will it cause Google to index this beta site when we don't want it indexed?
Web Design | | CFSSEO0 -
Could our drop in organic rankings have been caused by improper mobile site set-up?
Site: 12 year old financial service 'information' site with lead gen business model. Historically has held top 10 positions for top keywords and phrases. Background: The organic traffic from Google has fallen to 50% of what it was over the past 4 months compared to the same months last year. While several potential factors could be responsible/contributing (not limited to my pro-active removal of a dozen old emat links that may be perceived as unnatural despite no warning), this drop coincides with the same period the 'mobile site' was launched. Because I admittedly know the least about this potential cause, I am turning to the forum for assistance. Because the site is ~200 pages and contains many 'custom' pages with financial tables, forms, data pulled from 3rd parties, custom/different layouts we opted for creating a mobile site of only the top 12 most popular pages/topics just to have a mobile presence (instead of re-coding the entire site to make it responsive utilizing a mobile css). -These mobile pages were set up in an "m." subdomain. -We used bi-directional tagging placing a rel=canonical tag on the mobile page, and a rel=alternate tag on the desktop page. This created a loop between the pages, as advised by Google. -Some mobile pages used content from a sub page, not the primary desktop page for a particular topic. This may have broken the bi-directional 'loop', meaning the rel=canonical on the mobile page would point to a subpage, where the rel=alternate would point to the primary desktop page, even though the content did not come from that page, necessarily. The primary desktop page is the one that ranks for related keywords. In these cases, the "loop" would be broken. Is this a cause for concern? Could the authority held by the desktop page not be transferred to the mobile version, or the mobile page 'pull away' or disperse the strength of the desktop page if that 'loop' was not connected? Could not setting up the bi-directional tags correctly cause a drop in the organic rankings? -Our developer verified the site is set up according to Google's guidelines for identifying device screen size and serving appropriate version of page. -Are there any tools or utilities that I can use to identify issues, and/or verify everything is configured correctly? -Are we missing anything important in the set-up/configuration? -Could the use of a brand new subdomain 'm.' in and of itself be causing issues? -Have I identified any negative seo practices or pitfalls? Am I missing or overlooking something? While i would have preferred maintaining a single, responsive, site with mobile css, it was not realistic given the various layouts, and owner's desire to only offer the top pages in mobile format. The mobile site may have nothing to do with the organic drop, but I'd like to rule it out if so, and I have so many questions. If anyone could address my concerns, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Greg
Web Design | | seagreen0 -
Rankings disappears for two days
We have noticed with 3 of my sites that rankings totally disappears for 2-3 days and then appear again on google 1st page. Why does this happen?
Web Design | | getpromoted0 -
Does on page links have an effect on SERP rankings with PANDA
I have been doing some competitive analysis basing my company on others and have noticed a pattern. Very high ranking sites seem to have limited the internal and external on page links on their subdomains to under 100. my site has a lot of links but all are relevant and lead to unique content. I am interested to know if anyone else has noticed this pattern in changes in the SERP results. bIs google now penalizing pages with to many on site nav links? And if a full site restructure is needed to allow google to index and rank these pages or if a it is a non issue and does not need to be addressed. Panda confuses me!!!!! HELP!
Web Design | | Brother220