Are pages with a canonical tag indexed?

[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.