Non-Canonical Pages still Indexed. Is this normal?
-
I have a website that contains some products and the old structure of the URL's was definitely not optimal for SEO purposes. So I created new SEO friendly URL's on my site and decided that I would use the canonical tags to transfer all the weight of the old URL's to the New URL's and ensure that the old ones would not show up in the SERP's. Problem is this has not quite worked. I implemented the canonical tags about a month ago but I am still seeing the old URL's indexed in Google and I am noticing that the cache date of these pages was only about a week ago.
This leads me to believe that the spiders have been to the pages and seen the new canonical tags but are not following them. Is this normal behavior and if so, can somebody explain to me why?
I know I could have just 301 redirected these old URL's to the new ones but the process I would need to go through to have that done is much more of a battle than to just add the canonical tags and I felt that the canonical tags would have done the job. Needless to say the client is not too happy right now and insists that I should have just used the 301's. In this case the client appears to be correct but I do not quite understand why my canonical tags did not work.
Examples Below-
Old Pages:
www.awebsite.com/something/something/productid.3254235
New Pages:
www.awebsite.com/something/something/keyword-rich-product-name
Canonical tag on both pages:
rel="canonical" href="http://www.awebsite.com/something/something/keyword-rich-product-name"/> Thanks guys for the help on this.
-
It can take a while. I disagree very slightly with Alan and EGOL on one point - while 301s are traditionally more appropriate here, I often find that canonicals are pretty strong (and more than a hint). Both suffer the same problem, though - the signal has to be crawled and processed, and that doesn't always take right away. I haven't seen any reports on it taking 2, 3, etc. times to happen, but I've definitely seen a page re-cache without the indexation signals beign honored.
Are these true duplicates or did something change in the interim a bit? If the duplicates don't seem like true duplicates or you put 1000s of them out there all at once, Google could choose to ignore the canonicals.
If these really seem stuck, though, switching to 301s is harmless, and for a permanent URL change, it is probably the better way to go. I wouldn't expect that to kick in instantly either, though.
-
Yes... I agree with Alan. Canonical is a hint.
We put rel=canonical on about 250 pages in early February. As of today about 1/2 of those pages are still in the SERPs. The numbers are falling but this is really really slow to implement.
If you have done everything correctly it will probably work but requires patience.
-
Alan, I appreciate the help. I will go with this and see what happens and try to find those videos. Graci.
-
Matt cutts has said it a few times in videos, i could not tell you what ones without doing a far bit of searching.
-
Yes they should, but 301's and canonicals leak link juice, so you want your links to go directly to the correct page where you can.
See half way down this page, you will see just how easy it is to do all this, with a few clicks.
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/microsoft-technologies-and-seo-web-development
for you it may not be quiest as easy as you are converting from id to product name, but if you look into the url rewrite module a bit further you will see it is posible to do this once for all pages
-
Also do you know of any documentation that states that it takes a few passes for a canonical tag to be honored and also for 301's as well? That would really help me explain my initial thoughts on using the canonical tag.
-
I get the part about the 301's and I believe we have iis7 but between departments, just not as simple of a change especially regarding the number of products I have to do this for, 800+.
Regarding the links to the old URL, it was my belief that with the canonical tag, that weight should transfer over to the the new URL as well or was I mistaken on that?
-
You seem to have done everything ok, but from my understanding google does not honer 301's or caninicals first crawl, they wait a few times to make sure its not a mistake.
What sort of server are you using? if you are using windows with iis7 is is very easy to impliment the urlrewites and corasponding 301's
i would 301, a canonical is a hint, a301 is a directive. and also if people stil go to your old pages, they may make a link to the old page rather then the new url.
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
-
Can I still monitor noindex, nofollow pages with Google Analytics?
I have a private/login site where all pages are noindex, nofollow. Can I still monitor external site links with Google Analytics?
Technical SEO | | jasmine.silver0 -
How to get google to forget my old but still working page and list my new fully optimized page for a keyword?
Hi There! (i am beginner in seo) I have dynamic and static pages on our site. I created a static page for a specific keyword. Fully optimized it, (h1, alt, metas, etc.....maybe too optimized). My problem is that this page is alive for weeks, checked it in GWT and it is in robots.txt, google sees it, and indexed it. BUT whenewer i do a search for that keyword, we still appear with the dynamically created link in the google listings. How could i "redirect" google, if sy make a search for that keyword than shows our optimized page? Is there a tool for that? I cant delete the dynamic page... Any ideas? Thx Andrew
Technical SEO | | Neckermann0 -
Google not index main keyword on homepage in 2 countries same language, rest of pages no problem
Hello, Two the same websites, two countries, same language http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl / http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.be The main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in top 10 of netherlands (steady position for 2 years) and in ** belgium** not in top 15****0 the main keyword "relatiegeschenken| but other keywords good positions, thats so strange I didn't understand and now every thing turned around suddenly: Now the main keyword "relatiegeschenken suddenly " not anymore in top 10 in the netherslandsits gone and other kewyords still good positions , now **main keyword suddenly in top 10 of belgium 2 years was not **other pages still ok. It are exactly the same websites and the same language. So double content But my programmer told me in google webmaster tools settings are right, so no problem with double content ? I really dont understand first main keyword in netherland in top 10 and in belgium not, now changed, now in belgium top 10 and not findable in the netherland on the main keyword. Maybe problem in code ? Maybe problems in code because websites are identical and active in two different countries wit same language ? No message about a penalty message in WMT, no spam links week i delete two strong but according to Linkdetox a bad links. I can not find a solution but its really important keyword that my customer want back in top 10 in netherland, like it was. All other positions and visitors are the same. Befor i have had this with belgium site, also main keyword google not index homepage. But suddenly no google show in belgium in top 10 Its turned around Kind regards, Marcel
Technical SEO | | Bossie720 -
Does Google Still Pass Anchor Text for Multiple Links to the Same Page When Using a Hashtag? What About Indexation?
Both of these seem a little counter-intuitive to me so I want to make sure I'm on the same page. I'm wondering if I need to add "#s to my internal links when the page I'm linking to is already: a.) in the site's navigation b.) in the sidebar More specifically, in your experience...do the search engines only give credit to (or mostly give credit to) the anchor text used in the navigation and ignore the anchor text used in the body of the article? I've found (in here) a couple of folks mentioning that content after a hashtagged link isn't indexed. Just so I understand this... a.) if I were use a hashtag at the end of a link as the first link in the body of a page, this means that the rest of the article won't be indexed? b.) if I use a table of contents at the top of a page and link to places within the document, then only the areas of the page up to the table of contents will be indexed/crawled? Thanks ahead of time! I really appreciate the help.
Technical SEO | | Spencer_LuminInteractive0 -
Numerous 404 errors on crawl diagnostics (non existent pages)..
As new as them come to SEO so please be gentle.... I have a wordpress site setup for my photography business. Looking at my crawl diagnostics I see several 4xx (client error) alerts. These all show up to non existent pages on my site IE: | http://www.robertswanigan.com/happy-birthday-sara/109,97,105,108,116,111,58,104,116,116,112,58,47,47,109,97,105,108,116,111,58,105,110,102,111,64,114,111,98,101,114,116,115,119,97,110,105,103,97,110,46,99,111,109 | Totally lost on what could be causing this. Thanks in advance for any help!
Technical SEO | | Swanny8110 -
Getting Pages Indexed That Are Not In The Main Navigation
Hi All, Hoping you can help me out with a couple of questions I have. I am looking to create SEO friendly landing pages optimized for long tail keywords to increase site traffic and conversions. These pages will not live on the main navigation. I am wondering what the best way to get these pages indexed is? Internal text linking, adding to the sitemap? What have you done in this situation? I know that these pages cannot be orphaned pages and they need to be linked to somewhere. Looking for some tips to do this properly and to ensure that they can become indexed. Thanks! Pat
Technical SEO | | PatBausemer0 -
The number of pages indexed on Bing DROPPED significantly.
I haven't signed in to bing webmaster tool for a while. and I found that Bing is not indexing my site properly all of a sudden. IT DROPPED SIGNIFICANTLY Any idea why it is behaving this way? (please check the attachment) INg1o.png
Technical SEO | | joony20080 -
Home Page Indexing Question/Problem
Hello Everyone, Background: I recently decided to change the preferred domain settings in WM Tools from the non www version of my site to the www version. I did this because there is a redirect from the non www to the www and I've built all of my internal links with the www. Everything I read on SEO Moz seemed to indicate that this was a good move. Traffic has been down/volatile but I think it's attributable mostly to a recent site change/redesign. Having said that the preferred domain change did seem to drop traffic an additional notch. I made the move two weeks ago. Here is the question: When I google my site, the home page shows up as the site title without the custom title tags I've written. The page that displays in the SERP is still the non www version of the site. a site:www.mysite.com search shows an internal page first but doesn't return the home page as a result. All other pages pop up indexed with the www version of the page. a site:mysite.com (notice lack of www) search DOES SHOW my home page and my custom title tags but with a non www version of the page. All other pages pop up indexed with the www version of the page. Any one have thoughts on this? Is this a classic example of waiting on Google to catch up with the changes to my tiny little site?
Technical SEO | | JSOC0