Canonical tags

[CreativeChoices]

Hi there,

I have just noticed that SEOmoz picked up some duplicates links that I would like to resolve but not sure how.

For example, the "Finding work in the arts" article has two links:

• http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts
• http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Finding+work+in+the+arts&utm_campaign=Footer+Links

Both links can be found on this page http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/industry-news-views/article/what-employers-are-looking-for (see attachment).

Would automatically generated canonical tags by the CMS solve this issue?

rmxiP

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

You should definitely be using the canonical tag for that page. As far as site wide, I wouldn't recommend to just add it automatically on every page. What CMS are you using?  There should be a way to control what pages it gets added to, you wouldn't want it applied when it shouldn't be.

-Dan

[AlanMosley]

3 things you could do, in order or preference

1. Correct urls to be the same

2. 301 1 to the other

3 canonical tag one to the other.

I want to make sure you understand how to make the canonical tags. you need to decided what url is tyhe original.(that would be the shorter of the 2) then the other page should have a canonical tag pointing to the original

[CreativeChoices]

Hi Dan,

We are using Expression Engine CMS.

Would you then recommend asking the developer to make an extra field available to capture the canonical url to be used when needed?

[CreativeChoices]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the reply and explanation.

There is only one entry in the CMS for the article in question (http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts).

The other longer URL (http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/finding-work-in-the-arts?utm_source=Website&utm_medium=Website&utm_content=Finding+work+in+the+arts&utm_campaign=Footer+Links)  just has google analytic tracking appended to it.

[AlanMosley]

you mean one page 2 urls. then put the tag in the one page, point to the one original url

[CreativeChoices]

Hi Alan,

Yes, one page, 2 urls (to test which link placement generates more clicks).

How do I place the canonical tag in a CMS driven website? Should we ask the developer to automatically generate canonical tags for pages or perhaps an extra text field to be used when a canonical tags needs to be added?

[irvingw]

Also go into google webmster tools and add the parameters to the parameter handling tool and set the instructions for how you want Google to deal with the specific parameters in your URLs

[AlanMosley]

I can not tell you, as i dont use a cms.

but this is the format

[paulbaguley]

Hi

I am having the same issue at the moment but mine is one page with a friendly url and the other has the CMS page id.

From looking into this I think a canonical tag is needed but I think you can do the robots.txt as well.

[AlanMosley]

No really, in robots you can block one of them, but that does not stop people from linking to both.

By far the best is not to have 2 urls

next is a 301,

then a canonical

and last would be to use robots.txt

[evolvingSEO]

Yes, I would recommend having the field available so you can add it when needed, but not on every page automatically.

Also, all of Alan's advise is very good, as well as irving's. Hope it helps!

-Dan

[paulbaguley]

Thanks for you reply Alan.