Diagnosing Canonical Errors Is Screaming frog reliable?

[Nightwing]

Morning from suny & warm wetherby UK

On this page http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ screaming frog is citing a canonical error but I'm confused as this piece of code is in place:

http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage" />

So my question is please - "Does this page  http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/ have a caninical error or is screaming frog useless?

Other examples where screaming frog is picking up canonical errors include:
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/
http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/

Oh forgot to say the preffered version is http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/About/right-to-manage/

Any insights welcvome

[Keszi]

Hey there!

I think I have found what your problem is with you canonical link

In your code you have:

And probably you are somewhere forcing the URls to have a / at the end.

So basically you are confusing browsers and search engine bots, because they now cannot tell which is the real version:

SE enters the page. Then it sees that the right version should be the one WITHOUT a "/" at the end, then that pages has a 301 redirect to the version which HAS a "/" at the end of the URL (but that has a canonical which points out that the preffered version should be ). So it is a non-ending circle.

So if you add a / to the end of your URl, your problem should be solved.

Final thought: Screaming Frog is working well.

I hope this was a solution.

Cheers,

Istvan

[Nightwing]

Wow great anser, I'm on to this now & will updat you with how things went

[Keszi]

Hey,

Maybe this helps you a littlebit: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes

Dr. Pete's article explains well how the status codes work.

Gr.,

Istvan

[Keszi]

Hey,

Any news on how it went? I am curious if that was the problem or not.

Gr.,

Istvan

[Nightwing]

Hi Istvan - your advice is good but ive just discovered its not been implemented! Time to kick some ass, I'll update you

[Nightwing]

Having spoke to oiur internal helpdesk (Who I trust & do know what theyre talking about) theyve taken a look at:

http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/footer-links/left/right-to-manage/

http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/how-we-care-for-you/right-to-manage/

http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/buying-a-home/right-to-manage/

http://www.goldsboroughestates.co.uk/what-our-customers-say/right-to-manage/

and I'm afraid they have a different perspective which is they see no canonical problem Hey ho think I'll just set my head on fire then maybe things will be more clearer

[Dr-Pete]

I think Screaming Frog is just warning you that the canonical version doesn't seem to match the display URL. They can't really tell (we have the same problem in SEOmoz tools) what the "right" canonical is - they can just warn of a mismatch.

I'm a bit confused as to the purpose of the dual URLs here. The best canonical implementation is to use one URL. The canonical tag can act as a band-aid, but  consistency is still the best defense. Having multiple paths to the same page is rarely beneficial.

[Keszi]

Hey,

Long time since the Question, I was just wondering if you worked it out or not.

Gr.,

Istvan