Deos canonicalisation work across directories?

[VIPvillasdotcom]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the group and can't find this question answered anywhere else.

I have a dynamic site that we aim to rewrite the URLs removing parameters and making it easier for the engines to index us and users to recall URLs.

The issue that worries me relates to canonical tags. If I put a canonical tag on a directory..

http://www.abc.com/spain (index page)

and then point all variations of that page to the index page will it stop/pass juice for those pages at the next directory level to the index page rather than properly index and rank those pages appropriately. ie.

http://www.abc.com/spain/Malaga.html will it pass any link juice I have for the second level to the first level?

It concerns me that it will as I had a conversation with someone who lost all visibility on her site and it turned out to be the canonical tag on the home page that was causing it.

Thanks in anticipation

[rhutchings]

Peter is correct below.  I think you are heading in the wrong direction.  After your explanation here, I understand a little more about where you are going.  Here is what I would say to your question:

1. All "old urls" (and all versions of) will need to have a 301 redirect to the new SEo friendly url.  The currency is a different issue.  You cant redirect that because you would never be able to show multiple currencies to the right users.  In the curreny example, you could use a canonical tag to the most popular or default currency.

2. Directories and IA (information architecture) of your site have nothing to do with redirects or canonical tags.  As Peter pointed out below, /spain/malaga is a totally different page than /spain.  You dont do anything special with tags here, you just create unique content for each of those pages.  You pass proper link juice upwards by internally linking your /spain/malaga page up to your /spain page, and every other page that exists below a main level directory page.  Essentially, you want all deeper pages linking up to your main directory page.

3.  In the small cases that you will be using the canonical tag, you put those tags on all the pages except the original page.

Hope that clears things up.  I was/am still a bit confused as to your structure, but think this should get you in the right direction.

[Dr-Pete]

Sorry, I'm still confused (read your reply to Ryan, who asked some good questions). The canonical, like a 301-redirect will consolidate link-juice, but only for the pages it's on and preferably only for actual duplicates.

If you put a canonical tag at the "/Spain" level, it doesn't impact "/Spain/Malaga.html" at all. It just makes sure that any stray inbound links to "/Spain" duplicates (like "/Spain?print=true") have their link-juice consolidated and don't show up in the index.

If you could give a couple of sample tags and how you're looking to use them, maybe we could dig in deeper. I feel like I'm missing something still.

[VIPvillasdotcom]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the response. I have to say I'm impressed at the speed!

Hmmm, there is a bit of both going to be happening. We are restructuring some of the dynamic pages to present user and search engine friendly URLs. I understand we will need to be putting in place redirects for those pages, so far so good. We have, for example, pages were each one can have a parameter for each  currency. I understand we would merely redirect every parameter version to the original page under the new user friendly URL?

We are then creating specific SEO landing pages for dedicated keywords per page. The URLs in here will be structured in directories. What I am confused about relates to differing levels of directory. If we put in a canonical tag on the top level will it direct all rank and link juice to that level, so Spain/ would benefit from the links to spain/malaga ?? Or would each level hold its own link juice spreading to links out and not the other way? I just don't want to pass link juice 'up' the chain so to speak due to a canonical tag.

Finally, and this may answer my question. If I have two pages that I want a tag to pass the link juice to one of them...do I place the tag on both pages and indicate on both tags the URL of the main page? If that is correct then I understand that the directory issue I am worried about won't exist because I will only put canonical tags on the one directory level.

Hope this isn't too long!

Thanks

Andy

[rhutchings]

Not sure why you want to use the canonical tag in this instance.  If http://www.abc.com/spain/Malaga.html is truly a duplicate or replicated page of the new /spain page, then I guess you could do it.   But it sounds to me like you are re-structuring your urls to be more friendly, and if that is the case you will want to permanently 301 redirect the old urls to the new SEO friendly one.  That will pass on the SEO juice in a more effective way then canonical a bunch of the old pages that you dont want anyway.

Is that the case?  It kind of depends on the content of each of the pages, and how that content interacts with the other pages.  Typically canonical is used for paginated instances or duplicated content that is handle in a different matter, not redirecting juice from old urls/pages to new ones.