Are pages with a canonical tag indexed?

[fablau]

Hello here,

here are my questions for you related to the canonical tag:

1. If I put online a new webpage with a canonical tag pointing to a different page, will this new page be indexed by Google and will I be able to find it in the index?

2. If instead I apply the canonical tag to a page already in the index, will this page be removed from the index?

Thank you in advance for any insights!

Fabrizio

[mememax]

Normally the only thing which will prevent a page from ranking is noindex tag. If you don't want to have it indexed just noindex it, if that page has been laready indexed, put the noindex tag and delete from index using GWT option.

Concerning the canonical tag thing, it will consolidate the seo value in one page but it won't prevent those page to appear in rankings, however you may have two cases:

1. the two or more pages are identical. In that case google may accept the canonicalization and show always the original page.
2. the two or more pages are slightly different, it's the case of paginated pages which are canonicalized using rel next/prev. In that sense the whole value will be consolidated in page 1 but then the page which will be shown in the rankings will be the one which responds to that query, for example if someone is looking for blue glass, google will return the page which shows blue glass listing if that's different from the first one.

Hope this may help you!

[fablau]

Thank you very much, that makes perfect sense. In my case, I am talking exactly about paginated content, and that's probably why all pages are in the index despite they are canonicalized to point to the main page. So, I guess that even if you have thousands of paginated pages indexed (mine is a pretty big e-commerce website), that's not going to be an issue. Am I right?

[Dr-Pete]

I have to disagree on this one. If Google honors a canonical tag, the non-canonical page will generally disappear from the index, at least inasmuch as we can measure it (with "site:", getting it to rank, etc.). It's a strong signal in many cases.

This is part of the reason Google introduced rel=prev/next for paginated content. With canonical, pages in the series aren't usually able to rank. Rel=prev/next allows them to rank without clogging up the index (theoretically). For search pagination, it's generally a better solution.

If your paginated content is still showing in large quantities in the index, Google may not be honoring the canonical tag properly, and they could be causing duplicate content issues. It depends on the implementation, but they recommend these days that you don't canonical to the first page of search results. Google may choose to ignore the tag in some cases.

[fablau]

Thank you for your post, and I think you have just opened a doubt I had, and that's exactly what also concerned me.

Have a look at this typical category page of ours:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html

For that category pagination, I have implemented the rel=prev/next as suggested by Google, but being afraid to be penalized for duplicate content, I also put a canonical tag pointing at the first page of that index. Should I have put the canonical tag pointing to the page series itself?

Something like:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2

for the second page instead of the general:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html

as I am currently doing?

Thanks!

[Dr-Pete]

This gets tricky fast. Google currently wants rel=prev/next to contain the parameters currently in use (like sorts) for the page you're on and then wants you rel-canonical to the non-parameterized version. So, if the URL is:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40

...then the tags should be...

Yeah, it's a bit strange. They have suggested that it's ok to rel-canonical to a "View All" page, but with the kind of product volume you have, that's generally a bad idea (for users and search). The have specifically recommended against setting rel-canonical to Page 1 of search results, especially if you use rel=prev/next.

Rel=prev/next will still show pages in the index, but I've found it to work pretty well. The other option is the more classic approach to simple META NOINDEX, FOLLOW pages 2+. That can still be effective, but it's getting less common.

Adam Audette has generally strong posts about this topic - here's a good, recent one:

http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284

[fablau]

Thank you Peter, I guess you meant to have the "canonical" tag as last tag in your example above, and also the previous rel=next and rel=prev definitions should be inverted:

Am I correct? That makes sense. If so, I will update my site to reflect this.

Thank you for the link!

[fablau]

Please, have a look at the page below, I have modified the canonical tag as suggested:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=40

Is that correct?

Thank you again very much.

[Dr-Pete]

Wow, yes - sorry about that. I've updated it. Google original write-up actually covers this case, too (it's toward the end):

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

[mememax]

Hey Fabrizio, I think that what Google states in their guidelines is that you have two choices:

• if you have a view all page, you should noindex and follow all your other pages so google will deliver only that page
• if you don't have a view all page or if you prefer to show paginated series (i.e. to make pages lighter and quicker to deliver to users) you may consider to use rel next/prev.

In this second case it may happen that you also add filters or session ids in the urls of those pages, in that case you should consider adding a self referentail canonical tag to avoid duplicates. But this is only if you cover this case, if you're looking to canonicalize correctly your paginated series you may not use the self canonical tag, because if not properly implemented this may get you a bit of extra work.

In this page for example

I found this:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&lpg=0">

Which  I don't think is what you want to do.

Also if you set the page to view as a table: your url changes to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1

and while the canonical should remain the same (well done but I think you should get rid of the lpg parameter in the canonical), the rel next prev should change accordingly IMO.

So instead of being:

prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60

you should offer the next and prev page of the filtered url:

next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60&viewlistflag=1
prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20&viewlistflag=1

Or in this case (since the content is almost the same you may consider the list page as the canonical of the table one putting there a noindex.

Summing up, IMO: in this page http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3

you'll have:

prev: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4&lpg=60
next: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2&lpg=20
(optional) a self canonical to http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3

In this page (and in other filtered pages if you have apply the same idea):
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3&viewlistflag=1

You'll have:

noindex,follow and canonical to the list page:
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3

maybe dr peter can correct me if I'm wrong but I think this should be more consistent like this. Sorry for the huge answer

[fablau]

Thank you ! That makes sense now.

[fablau]

Yes, thank you Mememax, I agree with you 100%. That makes perfect sense and I will work on that tomorrow morning. I am eager to know Dr. Peter thoughts and confirmation.

On my side, I think I got it cleared-up now. Thank you very much again!

[fablau]

Mememax, after thinking I have some doubts though about what you have suggested.

Why I want to put a noindex tag to the page displaying the list in "table view" if I already have a canonical tag pointing to the "regular view" page? Wouldn't the canonical tag be enough for the purpose of telling that the "real" canonical page is the "regular view" version? I am asking this because if I want to apply a noindex tag to that kind of different view, I may want to do the same to the list displayed with a different order, and for any other different way of displaying the list, etc... hence just using the canonical tag would be appropriate, pointing always to the "regular list" view, no matter what kind of "filtering" or "different view' option is selected. What do you think?

In other words, I don't think I need to include a noindex tag for any different kind of view the user requests as long as I provide a canonical tag pointing to the regular view list.

Am I correct?

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, to be fair, I'm not clear on what all of the additional parameters (like "lpg=") do, so this can get tricky fast. Basically, look at it this way:

If the URL is:
example.com/page=3?param=x

Then the tags should point to:

Rel=prev:
example.com/page=2?param=x

Rel=next:
example.com/page=4?param=x

Rel=canonical:
example.com/page=3 (no parameters)

Some parameters may not be indexed and/or functional, though, so individual cases can vary. You may choose to ignore some parameters in Google Webmaster Tools, for example. It gets tricky as the parameter list grows.

[fablau]

Yes, actually I could get rid of the lpg parameter (it wasn't really needed!), so now the tag definitions are (for the 3rd page of the Guitar index):

<LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">next</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=4)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">prev</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=2)"> <LINK rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3](view-source:http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downloads/Indici/Guitar.html?cp=3)">

Now, the only doubt I still have is to add or not add the noindex tag to the page when it is requested to be displayed in a different way (such as the "table view" or a different item display order). In my opinion, if I stick with the canonical tag I don't need a noindex directive. What do you think?

[mememax]

Sorry Fabrizio I got mad with my old answer

that canonical doesn't make sense with a noindex, with noindex follow.you're completely fine.

Summing up I think that you have many parameters so you should try to write them down and define the role of each one.

Then add them in GWT and choose there which are the ones which doesn't add any value and which you want to "block" (instead of putting a noindex).

The valuable ones (the one which adds value and changes content) should contain the self canonical and paginated next/prev. If you can get rid of unesful parameters it could be better so to have cleaner and shorter urls.

Just be sure that you're mainly using the most important parameters so you're consistent with your strategy.

Hope this will clear your doubts, it was a nice chat!

[fablau]

Yes, I will look into doing that on GWT.

Was a nice and useful chat indeed! Thank you again.