Appropriate Use of Canonical Tag
-
Hello,
I am creating study guides for books with tabbed elements for each study guide.
For example, for Othello, I'd have 3 tabs like so:
1. Overview page = xyz.com/othello
2. Context = xyz.com/othello/context
3. Characters = xyz.com/othello/characters
I noticed that YouTube channels have tabbed elements and use the canonical. For example, all of the tabbed sections on https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist/channels have this canonical http://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist">
In my case, would it be a correct use of the canonical tag to include rel="canonical" href = http://xyz.com/othello on each of the tabbed pages?
Also, where exactly in the header should the canonical be placed? Before or after open graph / twitter cards?
-
Hi Jason,
I would definitely not canonicalise between the three+ URLs about one text unless those URLs contain identical information. Since they won't be identical (one will be plot, one characters, etc. as you say earlier in the thread), I would not canonicalise. You will result in content such as that on characters not being indexed or crawled. The site is therefore probably less likely to rank for queries like [othello characters] if the characters page has a canonical tag on it, pointing to the plot summary page.
Without having seen the site or mock-ups, I believe you would be safe to use separate URLs for each area of study surrounding one topic.
However, you could indeed put all this content on one page and use tabs to switch between the content, given that it is too long to fit nicely on one page. The tabs should be operated by CSS, and all the text (plot summary, characters, context) would be in the source code upon page load. People would click between tabs to read it. This is not considered cloaking or hiding content, although I would avoid doing this if the content for each section is particularly lengthy. I doubt it would get you in trouble, but if you are creating substantial content for each area of study, this would work well on separate URLs _without _canonicalising to one particular page, as per your original structure.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I'd recommend using pagination over canonicals.
Refer to this post to learn how to implement them.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
Again, if the content is all on one page, partitioned into separate tabs, then there's no need for canonicals or anything else for that matter. You can configure your tabs so the overview is the default tab, the one that displays on entry to the page.
If the page becomes too lengthy or takes to long to load, then another option is to split it onto separate URLs and use page (rel=next and rel=prev) tags to relate them.
-
There is way too much content to fit onto one page - that is why I am using the tabular format. The question is should the content in all tabs be on the same URL or different URLs? And if different URLs should I use the canonical?
-
In my opinion, the content would ideally be located on the same page.
You have to balance that with the length of the content and the ability of the page to load quickly. Assuming you can get it all on one page, then you don't need canonical tags.
-
So I am laying the content out in tabular format. This actually leads to another question - should each tab be a separate URL or all on the same URL? Perhaps by keeping everything on the same URL this would also solve my canonical issue?
-
So the issue is that the content within each tab is definitely not duplicate but related. Ie one tab might be the plot summary while another tab consists of character descriptions. Ideally, I think the best user experience would be for all users to start on the overview though. So given that the content in each tab is NOT duplicate but it would be a better user experience to start at the overview, should I use canonical or is it safer to just leave it out?
-
I think I'm not understanding something. Why do you want to partition the content onto three pages? Why not just lay out the content so it displays in a tabular format? That way you don't have to worry about canonicalizing or paginating the content at all.
if you are concerned about page load tomes, then if would consider pagination instead. This post is an excellent resource for how (and when) to do that.
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
-
The example you stated would prevent context and character tabs from being indexed in search engines. If these are unique content, you should reconsider because canonical was originally created for multiple urls with identical information. Place the tag anywhere in the header.
-
If those pages are essentially duplicate content, then you should use a canonical. If you Google to index each of those pages separately, and return each one in search results, then you should not use one. Do you want people who search for text that matches your context and character tabs closely to be linked directly into those tabs, or should they always start at the overview page? If they should always start at the overview, you can try the canonical tags. Be aware that if the page contents aren't very similar, Google may ignore these.
Anywhere in the is fine, it doesn't matter where you place 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
-
Hreflang Tags & Canonicals Being Used
We have a site on which both hreflang tags and canonicals are being used. There are multiple languages, but for this I'll explain our problem using two. There are a ton of dupe page titles coming up in GSC, and we're not sure if we have an issue or not. First, the hreflang tags are implement properly. UK page pointing there, US page pointing there. Further down the page, there are canonical tags - except the UK canonical tag points to the UK page, and the US version points to the US page. I'm not sure if this will cause an issue in terms of SEO or indexing. Has anyone experienced this before or does anything have any insight into this? Thanks much! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Snaptech_Marketing0 -
Google ignoring Canonical and choosing its own
Hey Mozzers, We have several products that all have upto 6 different versions, they are the same product but in a different specification. As users search via these specifications (within our website) it is beneficial to keep all 6 products as different listings on the website. In google however it is not. So we kept all 6 listing but chose 1 to be the google landing page, the only different between them all is the technical specification + occasionally size. But 95% of the pages are the same. Let call the products A, B, C, D, E, F, we made all the canonicals point to C because this is out best selling version of the product. However, google has chosen E to rank instead. What is my best move here? Should i accept the page google has chosen and change the canonicals the point to that version or should I be stubborn and try to get google to change which version it ranks. As always many thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP0 -
Is it alright to repeat a keyword in the title tag?
I know at first glance, the answer to this is a resounding NO, that it can be construed as keyword stuffing,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MIGandCo
but please hear me out. I am working on optimizing a client's website and although MOST of the title tags
can be optimized without repeating a keyword, occasionally I run into one where it doesn't read right if I
don't repeat the keyword. Here's an example: Current title:
Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name What I am considering using as the optimized title:
Adobe Photoshop on the Cloud | Adobe Photoshop Webinars | Company Name Yes, I know both titles are longer than recommended. In both instances, only the company name gets
truncated so I am not too worried about that. So I guess what I want to know is this: Am I right in my original assumption that it is NEVER okay to
repeat keywords in a title tag or is it alright when it makes sense to do so?0 -
Rel=Canonical=CONFUSED
Hey, I am a confused canonical and here's why - please help! I have a master website called www.1099pro.com and then many other websites that simply duplicate the material on the master site (i.e www.1099A.com, www.1099T.com, www.1099solution.com, and the list goes on). These other domains & pages have been around for long enough that they have been able to garner some page authority & domain authority that it makes it worthwhile to redirect them to their corresponding pages on www.1099pro.com. The problem is two-fold when trying to pass this link-juice: I do not have access to the web-service that hosts the other sites/domains and cannot 301 redirect them The other sites/domains are setup so that whatever changes I make to www.1099pro.com are automatically distributed across all the other sites. This means that when I put on www.1099pro.com it also shows up on all the other domains. It is my understanding that having on a site such as www.1099solution.com does not pass any link juice and actually eliminates that page from the search results. Is there any way that I can pass the link juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stew2220 -
HTTPS in Rel Canonical
Hi, Should I, or do I need to, use HTTPS (note the "S") in my canonical tags? Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Can I use rel=canonical and then remove it?
Hi all! I run a ticketing site and I am considering using rel=canonical temporary. In Europe, when someone is looking for tickets for a soccer game, they look for them differently if the game is played in one city or in another city. I.e.: "liverpool arsenal tickets" - game played in the 1st leg in 2012 "arsenal liverpool tickets - game played in the 2nd leg in 2013 We have two different events, with two different unique texts but sometimes Google chooses the one in 2013 one before the closest one, especially for queries without dates or years. I don't want to remove the second game from our site - exceptionally some people can broswer our website and buy tickets with months in advance. So I am considering place a rel=canonical in the game played in 2013 poiting to the game played in a few weeks. After that, I would remove it. Would that make any sense? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jorgediaz0 -
How accurate and quick does Google pick up on canonical tags?
Hey Peeps! I was just wondering what your experiences are in how fast Google will pick up on canonical tags and how often they use the 'strong hint' in stead of leaving it be? I'm based in The Netherlands and for websites with a decent amount of content and links (where Google indexes new content quickly) they pick up on it within 1-2 weeks. So far they've ignored some canonical tags on one of my websites. Perhaps that's because they don't agree with the degree in which the pages are similar. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StevenvanVessum0 -
Canonical Tags & Search Bots
Does anyone know for sure if search engine bots still crawl links on a page whose canonical tags are set to a different page? So in short, would it be similar to a no-index follow? Thanks! -Margarita
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MargaritaS0