Rel Canonical tag using Wordpress SEO plugin
-
Hi team
I hope this is the right forum for asking this question.
I have a site http://hurunuivillage.com built on Wordpress 3.5.1 using a child theme on Genesis 1.9. We're using Joost's Wordpress SEO plugin and I thought it was configured correctly but the Crawl Diagnostics report has identified an issue with the Rel Canonical tag on the sites pages.
I have not edited the plugin settings so am surprised the SEOMoz Crawl has picked up a problem.
Example:
Page URL is http://hurunuivillage.com/
Tag Value http://hurunuivillage.com/ (exactly the same)
Page Authority 39
Linking Root Domains 23
Source Code
Considering the popularity of the plugin I'm surprised I have not been able to find tutorials to find what I'm doing wrong or should be doing better.
Thanks in advance.
Best
Nic
-
I appreciate all your responses.
Paul, thanks for your detailed reply.
Best
Nic
-
Unfortunately, Nic, the SEOMoz tool does a really bad job of explaining that the Notices section of the on-page reports does NOT mean those areas have problems. The tool is simply informing you that those specific elements appear on your website. It is then up to you to decide whether they're appropriate or not. (The exact wording is "Notices are interesting facts about your pages we found while crawling". Pretty vague)
In the case of the canonical URLs, they're definitely a good thing and as neither you nor Oleg see any problems with them, all is fine.
As an example, that Notices section would also tell you if it found no-follow tags. If those had been added accidentally, they could be disastrous, so having the tool tell you they exist could warn you that someone had made a mistake. Or it could simply be that you put them in place on purpose. See? Judgement call.
Hope that helps;
Paul
-
SEOmoz alerts you because they're not really needed. They will not hurt you.
-
Maybe SEOMoz crawl has encountered a problem with your self-canonical tags. As Oleg told you, you don't have any issue with your canonical tags, it's just a matter of personal opinion to use self canonicals or not.
If you're afraid of possible scraper re-publishing your content and if you use url-based user sessions it may be worthwhile to have. But it doesn't hurt in any way.
-
Thanks for the quick reply.
Because the install is "out-of-the-box" I expected they were right.
What is SEOMoz trying to tell me about the tags? -
Your canonicals looks all good to me, I wouldn't worry about it.
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
-
What punctuation can you use in meta tags? Are there any Google does not like?
So I know you can use dashes and | in meta tags, but can anyone tell me what other punctuation you can use? Also, it'd be great to know what punctuation you can't use. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Trevorneo1 -
URL Structure & SEO - Should we be using sub-folders?
Hi all, As part of our content marketing efforts we have run a number of initiatives in the past and created pages on the website to go along with them (also where the links for these particular projects point to). However, the URL structure isn't actually a reflection of where the pages sit on the site. Unfortunately I'm unable to provide a URL for reasons I won't bore you with, but here's an example: We recently ran a competition that was very successful in generating links. The URL for this is www.domain.co.uk/competition. However, the page actually sits within the About Us section - which is where all of our news and content marketing pages go - and uses a URL override. How much of an issue is this in regards to A) Our SEO in general?; and B) Ensuring we receive as much equity from the links we earn as possible? A brief explanation of what URL overrides actually are would also be useful! (We have a digital marketing agency who handle most of our SEO) Thanks in advance guys! John
Technical SEO | | NAHL-14300 -
Is it appropriate to use canonical for a yearly post with similar content?
I've begun writing an annual review of local business directories. Post from 2012 is here: http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog/top-10-australian-business-directories-in-2012/ New 2014 post is here: http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog/top-10-australian-business-directories-2014/ Is this appropriate use? Next year the post will be similar, but different metrics reported and slightly different review. Side note: For some reason the post hasn't been indexed by Google yet. Usually new posts are indexed as soon as they are shared on social media.
Technical SEO | | ServiceCrowd_AU0 -
Rel=canonical overkill on duplicate content?
Our site has many different health centers - many of which contain duplicate content since there is topic crossover between health centers. I am using rel canonical to deal with this. My question is this: Is there a tipping point for duplicate content where Google might begin to penalize a site even if it has the rel canonical tags in place on cloned content? As an extreme example, a site could have 10 pieces of original content, but could then clone and organize this content in 5 different directories across the site each with a new url. This would ultimately result in the site having more "cloned" content than original content. Is this at all problematic even if the rel canonical is in place on all cloned content? Thanks in advance for any replies. Eric
Technical SEO | | Eric_Lifescript0 -
Why am I getting rel= canonical?
I'm getting 14 rel=canonical tags on my site. Could someone offer me an insight as to this is happening? http://cool-invent.com Thanks, Lorraine
Technical SEO | | coolinvent0 -
How does the FSS jQuery plugin affect SEO?
Looking to create a full screen sliding site for optimum use on tablets. Found this: http://codecanyon.net/item/fss-full-screen-sliding-website-plugin/full_screen_preview/159103 What is the general feeling on using FSS in terms of SEO? Should it be avoided? What's the alternative? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | 9xbmarketing0