Theoretical Canonical Query/Test
-
This is just a general discussion on your thoughts on this - maybe some tests have been done, but I haven't found any.
Suppose I have document X
If I put document X on high authority website A - It comes in SE position 1 for Keyword Z
If I put document X on low authority website B - It comes in SE position 10 for Keyword Z
What happens (if anything) if I put document X on website A and include a canonical tag to point to document X on website B.
What SE position would document Z on website B now come for Keyword Z ??
-
I've been working with the canonical tag for many issues since Feb 2009. I haven't tried this particular situation. It will most likely not rank document X on website B like it would on website A without canonical.
Since canonical translates to "i'm a copy of an existing page", then I guess that it would perform as if it was the documenton website B.
It is a whole different story if document X has been linked to from good pages on website A. If it ranks possition 1, then it is likely it is linked. This way you should be able to transfer some link juice. It is considered to pass on less than 301 redirect, which on its part is not passing the whole thing.
I look forward to some testing. I will try to see if I can do the experiment myself. This sounds like a good way to build links. That is if you can place the canonical link element on website A.
-
Is the real question - Does the cross-domain canonical tag pass domain and/or page metrics to the canonical page?
Yes, most likely
Check out this - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/cross-domain-canonical-the-new-301-whiteboard-friday
However, to think about it more specifically.
Site A (DA:65, PA:35) ranks first for content Z. Site B (DA:20, PA:15) ranks 10th for content Z. Site A add a canonical tag to Site B, what happens?
- Site B will rank higher and Site A will drop out.
- Site A maintains it's rank and Site B will improve rank.
- Site A will drop in ranking and Site B will improve rank.
- No change to either site.
Most likely in my mind is 1 is most likely depending on how competitive the keyword is.
-
You can find tests carried out by the Dr. here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-extreme-canonical-tricks
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
-
Purpose of Putting "/collections" in URL String
I'm noticing that on many of my competitor's eCommerce sites, the URL for every subcategory of products is preceded by "website.com/collections/subcategory" rather than "website.com/maincategory/subcategory" Can anyone tell me why this is, and if it is beneficial to SEO to have URL strings designs this way?
Competitive Research | | acubine0 -
Long tail keywords / Close variations of keywords / Duplicate Content
In a classified site, people usually search for the same item with different keywords which are often very close to each other and point to same set of results: e.g. honda civic for sale
Competitive Research | | razasaeed
used honda civic for sale
civic for sale
used civic for sale
used civic All the above keywords should actually lead to same results i.e honda civic for sale. Our competitor is creating a page for each one of these www.sitename.com/q/honda-civic-for-sale/
www.sitename.com/q/used-honda-civic-for-sale/
... and so on Basically they create a page for each high traffic keyword they encounter where as we have very structure search. How to compete with that ? They are ranking on all these long tail keywords because of separate landing pages though most of the pages are duplicate of each other. 98% same content (all are showing honda civics) Should we go that route OR optimize our single page focusing on keyword with highest traffic and hope google will rank us for the related keywords as well ?0 -
My (properly optimised) webpage outscores page#1 ranked competitors on page/domain authority ... but I'm only on page#2\. Huh?
I'm puzzled. I've optimised a particular page for a particular search term, and the SEOMoz tool gives me an A for on-page optimisation. So no problem there. I can understand why my webpage/site is being outranked by pages from (for example) the Guardian and Oxford University, but there are several sites that Google is ranking on page #1 though their page and domain scores are well below ours. Specifically: my page/domain authority scores are 46/52, compared with 22/46 for the competitor that Google is ranking #5 - yet we only rank a lowly #12. And it's not as though the particular page in question isn't an obvious and appropriate part of our site. We work with new writers and the page in question offers a selection of creative writing courses. It's not like we're a writing-related site that suddenly has a page advertising fake rolexes. It's not a timing issue either, as most of our links have been in place for a couple of years at least. So I'm puzzled. And concerned. This page of ours was a reliable revenue generator for us and it's dying out there on the page#2 wilderness. If anyone can help, I'd be massively grateful. I don't know if this is helpful, but the page in question is http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Creative-Writing-Courses.html and the search term is ... well, heck, you take a wild guess. We're a British firm, so the only search engine that really matters to us is google.co.uk
Competitive Research | | harrybingham0 -
Free tools to find country of origin of backlinks/urls
Hey are there any free tools out there which can allow me to insert a large list of urls, and it determines the country of origin of the domain. I know the paid version of majestic does, but i was wondering if theres any free tools? Cheers, Chris
Competitive Research | | monster990 -
Alt image or allow /image in robot.txt
Howdy, Me and my co-workers had a discussion at lunch time. We wonder if we should allow /image in our robot.txt. We arent sure what rank best. Image whit keyword in it or simply had a Alt at each image and hide the /image in the robot.txt... or have a allow /image AND a alt source. P.S. At this point, we didnt work on any sitemap or link it anywhere. Ty.
Competitive Research | | Promoteam0 -
"keyword" - rank the home page or sub page domain.com/keyword?
One of my clients has a pretty decent website that ranks 1st place for most major keywords in their line of business. EXCEPT one keyword that i've been struggling to get 1st position on Google (currently 2nd). My problem is: let's say "tennis shoes" as a keyword the home page of course has several other shoes listed but I've seen that Google took my home page and made it 2nd position (on 1st page). Where the section domain.com/tennis-shoes is on 2nd page of Google. My question is should i rel cannonical from the /tennis-shoes section to the home page so it focuses more on the specific keyword that i need to get the home 1st? Or should i leave the home page generic and focus more on /tennis-shoes to get that 1st position? What do you Moz'ers Think?
Competitive Research | | mosaicpro0 -
Multiple links from Dmoz/Google directories worldwide
I came across www.soundandvision.com and did a Link Analysis on them.... http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/www.soundandvision.com/a!links I noticed that the top links they have are from Google directories or Google IP's. How has this happened? I am listed in Dmoz in the UK does this mean I have automatically appeared around the world. Dmoz is pretty strict about rejecting links how can a company be listed so much? Is this a good practise? Cheers
Competitive Research | | JohnW-UK1