Which Canonical URL Tag tag should we remove?

[brian.james]

Hi guys,

We are in the process of optimizing the pages of our new site.

We have used the 'on page' report card feature in the Seomoz Pro Campaign analyser. On several pages we got the following result

---

No More Than One Canonical URL Tag

Number of Canonical tags

<dl>

<dd>2</dd>

<dt>Explanation</dt>

<dd>The canonical URL tag is meant to be employed only a single time on an individual URL (much like the title element or meta description). To ensure the search engines properly parse the canonical source, employ only a single version of this tag.</dd>

<dt>Recommendation</dt>

<dd>Remove all but a single canonical URL tag</dd>

</dl>

---

I have looked into the source code of one of the pages http://www.sabaileela.co.uk/acupuncture-london and can see that there are two "canonical" tags.

Does anyone have any advise on which one I should ask the developer to remove?  I am not sure how to determine the relative importance of either link.

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

It looks like your have two canonicals on all of your pages. They are being generated by two conflicting sources in your WordPress setup.  One looks like its coming from the wooCommerce and the other perhaps from the default WordPress settings.

So the bigger issue is to have your developer decide on which source is best to take the canonical from. This will depend perhaps on if one works better than the other.

Hope that helps!

-Dan

[brian.james]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply.

I am still not completely clear as to what to request.  There is a language barrier with our developer so I generally try to be as unambiguous as possible.

Any ideas on how the developer can determine 'if one works better than the other'?

regards

Brian

[evolvingSEO]

Brian

As far as which to remove, that's just up to him to decide. Unless I saw how the site was put together with plug-ins etc he should be able to determine which one is best to use.  Its whichever is easier for him really.  From an SEO standpoint you just need to choose one, it doesn't matter which.

Hope that clarifies!

-Dan