Canonical Confusion
-
So I have products appearing in several categories, all of which have the correct canonical url. But Moz is flagging up pages I never knew existed, and I don't understand why they exist at all and more so why my canonical fix isn't occurring for them, as below:
SEO Friendly URL: http://thespacecollective.com/nasa-pin-sets/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2
Weird URL to same product: http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=themecontrol/product&product_id=159
Is this a developer problem rather than an SEO problem?
-
I understand , you may need an opencart professional to fix the problem.
-
Hello Vijay,
As discussed previously I already use an extension and the problem is still occurring. I was hopeful with the solution in your 2nd link, tried it, and as with most things gave me an error and took down my site. I'm sure this error is a problem that a good developer could fix but alas I don't have one.
-
THIs is the common issue with all open cart sites, if you discuss this issue with the developer, he will be able to fix it… no big deal!
-
Hi spacecollective,
Firstly, I love the site and I'll be buying a gift for my dad's birthday from here!
There are definitely some issues with canonical tag and redirect chains here. I'd say it's an issue with the development of the site that is now causing SEO issues - so it's an issue for both!
I'll use the product you mentioned in my example:
http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=themecontrol/product&product_id=159
canonicalizes to
http://thespacecollective.com/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2/
which redirects to
http://thespacecollective.com/nasa-pin-sets/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2
which canonicalizes to
http://thespacecollective.com/space-memorabilia/nasa-pin-sets/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2/All of these URLs should have the same canonical URL. I always prefer to canonicalize products that appear under multiple categories to the root level (it's also what Magento does by default and it works very well).
So, in this example, all variations would have a canonical tag pointing to
http://thespacecollective.com/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2/However, in your OpenCart CMS, it may be easier to canonicalize these to the final URL in the chain (http://thespacecollective.com/space-memorabilia/nasa-pin-sets/nasa-shuttle-mission-pin-set-no2/) as this is also the URL that is listed in the XML sitemap.
If you choose to canonicalize to the root level, you will need to make sure that the sitemap is updated to only include this new canonical URLs.
Hope this helps. Feel free to send me a PM if you have any further questions
Cheers,
David
-
Hi There,
I checked your website, it uses Opencart as a platform for e-commerce. You can search and use an extension from here http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension&filter_search=product canonical url seo
Or this can help you through https://isenselabs.com/posts/how-to-solve-the-duplicate-content-issue-in-opencart
I hope this helps, please feel free to ask further questions.
Regards,
Vijay
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
-
Canonical Tags increased after putting the appropriate tag?
Hey, I noticed that the number of duplicate title tags increased from 14k to 30k in Google Search Console. These dup title tags derived from having the incorrect canonical tags. For instance, http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/?d=Mens
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ggpaul562
http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/?d=Womens These two are the same exact pages with two parameters (These are not unisex by the way). Anyway, when I viewed the page source, it had the parameter in the canonical tag so.... it would look like this So whether it be http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/
http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/?d=Mens
http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/?d=Womens The canonical tag had the "?d=Womens" I figured that wasn't best practices, so for the canonical tag I removed the parameter so now the canonical tag is http://www.site.com/product-name/product-code/ for that specific page with parameter (if that makes sense). My question is, why did my number of errors doubled after what I thought fixed the solution?0 -
Geo-Targeted Sub-Domains & Duplicate Content/Canonical
For background the sub domain structure here is inherited and commited to due to tech restrictions with some of our platforms. The brand I work with is splitting out their global site into regional sub sites (not too relevant but this is in order to display seasonal product in different hemispheres and to link to stores specific to the region). All sub-domains except EU will be geo-targeted to their relevant country. Regions and sub domains for reference: AU - Australia CA - Canada CH - Switzeraland EU - All Euro zone countries NZ - New Zealand US - United States This will be done with Wordpress multisite. The set up allows to publish content on one 'master' sub site and then decide which other sub sites to 'broadcast' to. Some content is specific to a sub-domain/region so no issue with duplicate and can set the sub-site version as canonical. However some content will appear on all sub-domains. au.example.com/awesome-content/ nz.example.com/awesome-content/ Now first question is since these domains are geo-targeted should I just have them all canonical to the version on that sub-domain? eg Or should I still signal the duplicate content with one canonical version? Essentially the top level example.com exists as a site only for publishing purposes - if a user lands on the top level example.com/awesome-content/ they are given a pop up to select region and redirected to the relevant sub-domain version. So I'm also unsure whether I want that content indexed at all?? I could make the top level example.com versions of all content be the canonical that all others point to eg. and rely on geo-targeting to have the right links show in the right search locations. I hope that's kind of clear?? Obviously I find it confusing and therefore hard to relay! Any feedback at all gratefully received. Cheers, Steve
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveHoney0 -
Why isn't the canonical tag on my client's Magento site working?
The reason for this mights be obvious to the right observer, but somehow I'm not able to spot the reason why. The situation:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
I'm doing an SEO-audit for a client. When I'm checking if the rel=canonical tag is in place correctly, it seems like it: view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15) (line nr 15) Anyone seing something wrong with this canonical? When I perform a site:http://quickplay.no/ search, I find that there's many url's indexed that ought to have been picked up by the canonical-tag: (see picture) ..this for example view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15 I really can't see why this page is getting indexed, when the canonical-tag is in place. Anybody who can? Sincerely 🙂 GMdWg0K0 -
Canonical Query
If Google decides to ignore your canonical and indexes numerous versions, does that count as duplicate content? We've got a large amount of canonicals ignored by Google, so I'm just trying to gauge if it's an issue or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
Weird rankings... I'm lost & confused...
Hey guys, I've started working with this client a while back. Everything is working perfectly, we create great content, earn links and rank on a lot of interesting terms. Except for one term... It's keyword difficulty isn't even that high: 38%. (We rank on some keywords which have 60%). They got everything right: interesting and engaging content, a diversified backlink profile (with many organic good links), good on-page SEO but nothing can move them up. Some websites with a lower DA & MozRank are outranking them although they don't do anything regarding their SEO except buying scrappy links. The only thing I can see is that they transitioned to HTTPs and that plenty of their links directed to the HTTP domain. The 301 was done during the transition so I don't think we lost too much of link juice... Please note that during the Keyword Difficulty full-report, I noticed that all their metrics are similar to the first few results in SERPs and largely outpace the others... Any idea on what might be happening? Thanks for your help :)!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PierreLechelle0 -
Same content on other domain owned by de company. Canonical is not working
Hi! I am analyzing a website right now. It's a school, let's name it NEWSCHOOL. This school is owned by other school, let's name it, BIGSCHOOL NEWSCHOOL is specialized in tourism degrees, and the BIGSCHOOL is a bigger and older one with a lot of different degrees. What happens is that NEWSCHOOL has a course, let's name it TOURISM DEGREE.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite
BIGSCHOOL has that course too, with the same content, trying to help to promote the content, because this school is older, well known and has a consolidated brand internationally. BIGSCHOOL, has placed a canonical tag, telling Google that content comes from NEWSCHOOL. What is happening is that the result of newschool is beeing omited by google. The first result is the BIGSCHOOL content, and then a lot of training portals, where the degree content is too to increase its visibility. So, I would like to know, how can we do to say google that the content that it should show is the one of NEWSCHOOL and not the one in BIGSCHOOL. It's pretty clear that Google knows that those portals are closed related, because it is omitting the NEWSCHOOL results. I know that we can send a link from the content area from one portal to the other in the content we want. But... would it solve the problem... and y we have to repeat that for each degree, woudn't it be a little dangerous? Would like to know your points of view! Thanks!0 -
Previously owned domain & canonical
Hi, I've recently joined the business and as part of the cleanup process I got told that we owned this domain preferredsafaris.com with some very similar content to our main site southernafricatravel.com. We're no longer owns the preferredsafaris.com domain but looking at Google's cache for it we realised that the title, meta description & page shown when looking at the 'cached page' is for our current domain even though it is showing the 'correct' URL there. I imagine this might have something to do with canonical set on those pages but the weird thing is all those pages now render 404 & do not show a canonical in the source code. I have used Google Removal Tool https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals for all those URLs & Google says that it has removed them & yet they're still showing. What do you suggest? Any potential issue in regards to duplicate content here? Cheers, Julien
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SouthernAfricaTravel0 -
Can you canonical your homepage to a different URL on the same domain?
I would like to know if it is acceptable (or even possible from Google's standpoint) to canonical your homepage to a different URL on the same domain? For example, my homepage is www.grasscare.com (it's not) and I've built links to that page for years for terms like "grass seed" and "buy grass seed" because all I sold in the past was grass seed. If I then decide I want to sell both grass seed and sod, can I canonical my homepage (grasscare.com) to a new URL www.grasscare.com/grasss-seed.html to preserve the link value I've built up for "grass seed"?The new homepage would turn into a doorway page of sorts, forcing users to select either grass seed or sod before going further. Whatever content there is on the new homepage about grass seed would also be present on grasscare.com/grass-seed.html, though it would only be a small amount of content. Can a canonical be used to point the homepage to this new page and also, will this canonical pass all of the link value and ranking signals it help in the past to the new URL? Thank you in advance for any help or insight.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andrewv0