Canonical question for cross-listed product listings
-
We have products that are listed across multiple categories. This results in muliple urls for the PDP, for example:
mystore.com/shirts/shirt-101.html
mystore.com/shirts/pink-shirts/shirt-101.html
They make use of the canonical tag and point back to only one product listing url, however Google has indexed both urls in some cases.
Has anyone else run up against this and does anyone have advice on how this should be handled?
-
Thanks for the info. My concern is that there are some instances where Google is splitting the traffic between two PDP urls. I guess it's good to know it is a problem others have. From what I've read and what you've said, I don't see a solution without eliminating cross-listing of PDP's between relevant categories, and doing that (I think) would make for a poor user shopping experience.
-
Hi Liv,
There aren't quick solutions for these cases.
My usual approach is to rely on Google, its algorithm will eventually get the canonical tag.Its pertinent to understand that a canonical tag DOES NOT prevent a page to be indexed. The idea behind this signal is that Google would show the canonical version of the URL when it could have been the actual page.
I need to clarify this case, because when performing a site: search we will often find that canonicalised page there, but it usually does not get any traffic from Google.Another thing to consider IS UP TO GOOGLE to decide whether to honour and consider your canonical suggestion. I'd try that page in the URL inspection tool to see what Google is considering to be the canonical version.
And, last but not least, canonical works when two pages are (almost) identical, this is not a simple way to clean pages from google's index or to softly redirect traffic from one page to another without server redirects, I've seen this and many clients were really furious because it didn't work.Hope it helps.
Best luck.PS, just in case other users need it, some resources about canonicalization:
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
-
Question About Thin Content
Hello, We have an encyclopedia type page on our e-commerce site. Basically, it's a page with a list of terms related to our niche, product definitions, slang terms, etc. The terms on the encyclopedia page are each linked to their own page that contains the term and a very short definition (about 1-2 sentences). The purpose of these is to link them on product pages if a product has a feature or function that may be new to our customers. We have about 82 of these pages. Are these pages more likely to help us because they're providing information to visitors, or are they likely to hurt us because of the very small amount of content on each page? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | mostcg0 -
Does Canonical Tag Syntax Matter?
Does anyone know definitively if the format of the canonical tag matters? Silly question I know. vs
Technical SEO | | Healio0 -
How do I handle duplicate content of the same product in Multiple product categories?
I am building a BigCommerce store for selling framed art. Many of the pieces of art will fall in more than one product category. Let's say I have a framed print of a photograph of a western landscape. This piece of art would fit into these categories; "western", "landscape", and "photography". I would have three pages with duplicate content for just this one framed print. Will google give me less page rank due to this? Can all the link juice be given to just one of the three categories by use of rel=canonical? If so, does anyone know how to do this for a bigcommerce site? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks, Kelly
Technical SEO | | Kelly_S0 -
User Reviews Question
On my e-commerce site, I have user reviews that cycle in the header section of my category pages. They appear/cycle via a snippet of code that the review program provided me with. My question is...b/c the actual user-generated content is not in the page content does the google-bot not see this content? Does it not treat the page as having fresh content even though the reviews are new? Does the bot only see the code that provides the reviews? Thanks in advance. Hopefully this question is clear enough.
Technical SEO | | IOSC0 -
301 Redirect Questions
I have a site I built on a wisiwig editing platform that will not allow a 301 redirect. The site has already been remade and I need to point it to another domain. To do the redirect, can I change it to another domain host that will allow a 301 or will that make me loose the authority of the site? I may not be able to move the content of the site. Please help.
Technical SEO | | photoseo10 -
Canonical usage and duplicate content
Hi We have a lot of pages about areas like ie. "Mallorca" (domain.com/Spain/Mallorca), with tabbed pages like "excursion" (domain.com/spain/Mallorca/excursions) and "car rental" (domain.com/Spain/Mallorca/car-rental) etc. The text on ie the "car rental"-page is very similar on Mallorca and Rhodos, and seomoz marks these as duplicate content. This happens on "car rental", "map", "weather" etc. which not have a lot of text but images and google maps inserted. Could i use rel=nex/prev/canonical to gather the information from the tabbed pages? That could show google that the Rhodos-map page is related to Rhodos and not Mallorca. Is that all wrong or/and is there a better way to do this? Thanks, Alsvik
Technical SEO | | alsvik0 -
How to use Schema.org for product listings
Hi Guys, Maybe a weird question but how would you advise using Schema.org for product listings or if you prefer a sub category page with products listed in it. Thanks, Walid
Technical SEO | | walidalsaqqaf0 -
On-Page Report Card, rel canonical
My site has the rel canonical tags set up for it. The developers say that it is set up correctly. Looking at the source code myself, it looks (to my untutored eyes) to be set up correctly. However, on the On Page Report Card for every page I have checked, it says that it doesn't point to the right page. I'd really like to change all my 'B's to 'A's, but I simply can't see what the issue is.
Technical SEO | | Breakout0