Meta name="canonical" content="uRL" usage instead of link rel

[yusocialspain]

This post is deleted!

[donford]

Hi Victor I have never heard of the tag used this way, I would think it is just a simple mistake by the author.
Here is Google's recommendation on how to use the Canonical tag.

If you find out otherwise, for my personal knowledge I'd love to see some information on it.

Hope that helps,

Don

[edwardrj]

The meta tag method is functional and technically works, as far as I can tell. Google, however, recommends the link rel method, so personally I would stick to using it.

[mikeusry]

The metatag module puts out the code the correct way.  In the user interface you will see that it states "Canonical URL" and it is typically handled by a token e.g., [current-page:url:absolute].

If you view your page source you will see that the output is correct  - rel="canonical" href="http://mywebsite.com" />

The metatags module has had some interesting development issues but it is very solid and saves a ton of time when the tokens are properly configured.

[yusocialspain]

Hi MIke, thanks for your response

The issue were with an added module to manage metattags (meta tags quick), the drupal tags works properly and with link rel

Funny thing was after saying repetitive times to the developer, he discovered that changing the settings of the meta tags wuick, insert the code as an external link instead of meta_name, finally showing link rel=

After changing that, domain authority and page authority went some points up, so i guess is an issue that meta instead of link rel

As i previously said, thanks for your response Mike.

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Hi Mike,

On drupal, I have meta name="canonical" and rel="canonical" that I can edit, which one would you recommend to use?

1) meta name="canonical"

2)rel="canonical"

3. both

Second question:

In case If we use both with different URLs will it affect the canonical setup or not?

Thanks!

[mikeusry]

Hi Taysir,

My setup is set for link rel="canonical".    I dont think I have ever seen meta name="canonical"  Webmasters Tools states link rel in its examples - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

The Meta Tags module performs this by default.  I have not used Meta Tags Quick.  I would be a bit concerned in using both just in case your tokens were crossed up.  Although the canonical reference is a "suggestion" it is "strongly taken into consideration" by the bots.

My suggestion is to stick with rel="canonical"

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Thanks Mike!!

So what is the real purpose of having meta name="canonical"?

[mikeusry]

I don't think that there is any purpose in having that tag.  I have always viewed meta to mean descriptive tags such as keywords, descriptions etc across their various flavors (og etc)

I have always views "link" tags as being descriptive of an entity with that entity most always being a webpage.  Take rel="author" for example, it is used in context of a link. The "nofollow" is also used in terms of describing an entity e.g., a web page (link).

That is the way I have viewed it in my mind.  I don't see a purpose for meta name="canonical"

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Thank you Mike!!

I really did learn something today about canonicals

Much Appreciated!