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    4. Where to point Rel = Canonical?

    Where to point Rel = Canonical?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • AlightAnalytics
      AlightAnalytics last edited by

      I have a client who is using the rel=canonical tag across their e-commerce site.  Here is an example of how it is set up.

      URLs

      1.  http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.do?nType=22.  http://www.beautybrands.com/category/makeup/face/bronzer.doThe canonical tag points to the second URL. Both pages are indexed by Google.The first page has a higher page authority (most of the internal site links go to the first URL) than the second one.  Should the page with the highest authority be the one that the canonical tag points to?  Is there a better way to handle these situations?  Does any authority get passed through the tag?Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • NakulGoyal
        NakulGoyal last edited by

        This is fine. Nothing to worry about. The link juice does get passed onto the canonical URL. There's a slight loss, but it's sort of like a 301.

        This tag helps you avoid any duplicate content issues.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Copstead
          Copstead last edited by

          I would see if they could restructure their site so that the 2nd link was the actual link.  (without type2). I don't see why they would have those parameters as the main category.

          You really want the link architecture to flow with what your Canonical tags are saying.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • wojkwasi
            wojkwasi last edited by

            That canonical is fine - they're essentially saying that all those pages are the same content - applies to all "Sort By" filters too - better to have the 2 URLs consolidated into one in the SERPs

            .. btw, what's with all the whitespace characters in the source code? :S

            Copstead 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Copstead
              Copstead @wojkwasi last edited by

              Canonicals are fine, but you should always canonical the correct or main url.  (The one being used in the navigation)

              wojkwasi 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • wojkwasi
                wojkwasi @Copstead last edited by

                Absolutely 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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