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Canonical Tag Question

by dannyl
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi
I am looking at a website for a friend and whatever they have used to create it has added
<link rel="canonical" href="http://URL Of Itself.html> to the header of every page.

I thought the use of this function was if you had duplicate content then you use the tag to point at the page with duplicate content that you want to be the master, it doesn't really make sense to just add the tag and point it at itself.

Even though it isn't really doing anything, can the fact that each page has this attribute harm it in Google's eyes?

Thanks,
Dan
#default #everypage #pointing #relcanonical
  • Profile picture of the author PBScott
    I agree with you about it being a useless tag because it is as you say supposed to point away from duplicate content to a master page, they should remove it.

    How long have they been using it?
    Is the Content still indexed ?

    Google would probably just ignore it, but who knows. What if it ended up in some sort of loop where it keeps reading from the top of the page until it hits the tag again.
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  • Profile picture of the author linkassistant
    Originally Posted by dannyl View Post

    I thought the use of this function was if you had duplicate content then you use the tag to point at the page with duplicate content that you want to be the master, it doesn't really make sense to just add the tag and point it at itself.
    That's correct.

    Originally Posted by dannyl View Post

    Even though it isn't really doing anything, can the fact that each page has this attribute harm it in Google's eyes?
    Yes it can and it's a common mistake. So you should get rid of those.
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  • Profile picture of the author spiralSEO
    If you content is original there is no prob in adding it (make sure that rel="canonical" is the same url itself).
    If your content is copied one you can give <link rel="canonical" href="http://Actual content location Itself.html> to the header of duplicate page.

    The Aim of tag is to tell Google Bot the location of original content .
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  • Profile picture of the author jaggyjay
    I have this exact same question and would like to know more as the information I've found thus far is conflicting.

    Perhaps Yukon can chime in

    Anyway, I was thinking of doing the same thing... adding rel="canonical" href="http://URL Of Itself.html as sort of "preemptive" strategy should my site be scraped (and of course, to avoid dup content issues).

    I've found the following info on these industry "authority" sites:

    Understanding Negative SEO & How to Defend Your Website - Search Engine Watch (#SEW)

    -- they suggest "The use of an absolute rel=canonical tag on pages can help establish your site as the authority when content is getting scraped by a third party."

    Rel=Confused? Answers to Your Rel=Canonical Questions - Moz

    -- They say this practice is actually ok (see #5)

    seo - Canonical link rel tag pointing to the same page - Webmasters Stack Exchange

    -- They to suggest this is ok (ie: "There's no harm in doing so").

    Not trying to contradict anybody... just would like a solid answer and perhaps one even based on quantified testing.

    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author aliceria
    If you have two or more pages with similar content, you can tell Google which is your preferred page to show in the search engine results. This is referred to as your “canonical” page. If Google agrees this designated page is the best version, it will show this preferred page in its index.

    To tell Google which page you want listed as the canonical page, add the following bit of code into the head section of the similar (non-canonical) pages:

    <link rel="canonical" href="url"/>
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  • Profile picture of the author jaggyjay
    Thank aliceria, I think that much is clear. But the OP's question (and mine too) is whether or not it is harmful to reference origin page with rel canonical.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      You add it to the <head> not header, actually.

      This is 2013, soon to be 2014. It makes no difference.

      People go gaga and shriek like scared girls
      whenever they hear "duplicate content."

      People would solve a ton of problems, real
      and perceived, if they would only ditch WP and
      got a real CMS, or better still, just made their
      own pages.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author webby0031
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post


        People would solve a ton of problems, real
        and perceived, if they would only ditch WP and
        got a real CMS, or better still, just made their
        own pages.

        Paul
        Good advice, not
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    The canonical tag is supposed to point to the page/URL you want to show up in the SERPs, that's it's purpose, otherwise Google will make the decision for you (no canonical tag/s) which is a bad idea IMO.

    Having multiple internal pages with the same content can't really hurt rankings, the problem is If you have duplicate pages & don't tell Google the preferred URL & Google decides to display a duplicate page while your busy trying to rank the original internal page that's buried in Supplemental SERPs (duplicate page overflow).

    If you have duplicate pages either remove them from the site, noindex, or use a canonical tag the way it's supposed to be used.
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