Canonical links apparently not used by google

[bjutas]

hi,

I do have an ecommerce website (www.soundcreation.ro) which in the last 3 months had a drop in the SERP. Started to look around in GWT what is happening. Google is reporting a lot of duplicate meta-tags (and meta-titles problem). But 99% of them had already canonical links setted. I tried to optimize my product listings with the new "prev", "next" tags and introduced also the "view-all" canonical link to help Google identify the appropiate product listing pages.

SeoMoz is not reporting thos duplicate meta issues.

Here is an example of the same page with different links, but with the same common canonical and reported by GWT "duplicate title tag":

http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-chitari-electroacustice-cid10-pageall/http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-chitari-electroacustice-cid10/http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-chitari-electroacustice-cid10_999/http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-electro-acustice-cid10_1510/What could be the issue?- only that gwt is not refreshing as should be, keeping old errors?- if so, then there is an other serious issue because of why our PR is dropping on several pages?- do we have other problem with the site, which ends up with google penalizing us? Thank you for your ideas!

[TakeshiYoung]

Could just mean the data in GWT isn't current or Google hasn't re-indexed all the content yet.  How long ago did you put in the canonicals?

[bjutas]

Thanks Takeshi!

According to GWT our sitemap is parsed every 3 days (it is indexed in 90%) and the reports are updated also on 3-4 days period basis.

The canonicals we have been introduced more than two years ago. Fact is that I was not verifying it very often but as I remember there was only a few number of duplicate meta problems. Now they are about 12,000. That's twice of the number of the pages from the sitemap, and 30% of the 35,000 pages indexed by google. 35,000 is also much more than needed, I have to analyze if there are also duplicate pages.

[Dr-Pete]

I wouldn't both canonical to the "View All" AND use rel=prev/next - that could be sending mixed signals to Google. I'd let one do its work, if possible. There's another issue, though - you're canonicaling to:

http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-chitari-electroacustice-cid10-pageall/

...but the "View All" link goes to...

http://www.soundcreation.ro/chitare-chitari-electroacustice-cid10_-pageall/

...with an "_" (hard to see, since it's linked above). These are two different URLs and could be causing you some serious problems. You're basically sending 3 potentially conflicting signals to Google.

[bjutas]

Thank you Peter!

That "underscore" issue just pass through my attention. I will change it now, and hopefully it reduces some of the warnings. However this "page-all" and prev/next feature I've introduced just in the last 2 weeks. So the main part could be something else.

Now the rel="prev/next" feature I suspended too on the website, so I am really curious on the results.

Much appreciated your feedback! Thanks again!