Is Rel=Canonical the answer???

[Bush_JSM]

Hey Mozzers,

Can you help me with something please. I have some important content going live next week for a client. We work on there blog optimisation and this piece of content is going live on both the blog and parent site. The parent site has huge DA in comparions to the blog.

I want to get the traffic directed to the blog and get the blog ranking - bare in mind the content is exactly the same so it is dupe.

If I want to get the blog ranking above the parent site and to direct the traffic here is a cross domain Rel=Canonical the answer?

Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks

Bush

[StreamlineMetrics]

Would it be possible to only post the content on the blog and then add a few paragraphs on the main site which then links to the blog for the full article? I think that would be ideal.

Otherwise, you could try using the cross domain canonical tag in order to get the blog ranking for the content. The issue is that Google considers the canonical tag to be a hint rather than an absolute directive, so it might not necessarily work. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

[Bush_JSM]

Hi Streamline - thanks for such a helpful response.

I'll see what I can do and post here the outcome if i use Rel=canonical as it may help others.

Cheers for everything

bush

[Bush_JSM]

Hi Streamline,

We have to add the tag - the snippet idea although a great idea doesn't work for them.

Can I ask you as a follow up - is the below tag correct . I would add this to the parent site and the below tag tells Google that the parent site is hosting content and the blog is the canonical versions:

The below tag to the parent site, I'll add it to the section of the parent site not the blog:

[Dr-Pete]

Generally, I have to say that I think splitting out your blog site can do more harm than good, and splitting up AND double-posting is especially messy. I'm not sure on the business justifications, but from an SEO standpoint it's almost always trouble, long-term.

That said, cross-domain canonical should be effective here. It's a bit hard to predict, since the parent site is stronger, but done correctly, it should be low risk. I'm concerned with your implementation (in the comments), though, because it sounds like you're pointing the entire parent site to the blog site. That could be disastrous. Ideally, you'd canonical each individual blog post at the level of their unique URLs. Otherwise, you could really disrupt the ranking ability of your main site. Unfortunately, without seeing the exact site structure, I can't really tell you what the tag should look like.

[Bush_JSM]

Hi Dr Pete,

Thanks for your answer on this. In this case the rationale behind the implementation was purely to drive traffic over to the blog (not the parent site which is well known) to get more exposure of the blog content. The piece that was released was pretty 'hot' at the time and could gain more returning visitors and exposure to the blog which in comparison is little known.

In the end is wasn't possible and the news which got lots of traction went on the parent site so tage was implemented.

I can that splitting the blog away from the parent site is messy and we always advise against this, however in this case  there is internal justification for this which I can't go into here.

Thanks for everything as always

Gareth

[Dr-Pete]

It should work, but as I mentioned, I'd stick to doing it page-by-page. If there's a blog "home" on the parent site, you could cross-domain it to the new site. Just make sure you don't cross-domain some critical, high-authority page on the main site, or you could cause yourself more harm than good. Ultimately, you're giving authority from your main site to the new site, and that's not a free transaction - everything you gain on one side costs you something on the other.

[Bush_JSM]

Hi Dr Pete,

Thanks as always. I just re-read my response and the spelling mistakes are shocking so apologies for that

Can I ask if I implement a tag page by page and choose say 10 pages to rel= canonical from the parent site to the blog will this boost the the DA of the blog? We have links from the parent site to the blog in the footer. Will a Rel=Canonical tag pass more juice over to get it ranking? We want the blog to rank for brand name only which is an exact match of the parent URL. Parent URL ranks number 1, we want blog 2, 3 or 4.

I can't go into specifics so sorry to be vague.

Thanks as always

Gareth

[Dr-Pete]

You'll pass the PA - the impact on DA is a bit hard to estimate. It depends a lot on the strength of the individual pages, and, of course, if Google honors the tags. Once the canonical kicks in, the links won't be processed, most likely. It's a dicey proposition, though, and you'll probably need to adjust as you go. Most likely negative scenario is that the impact just isn't what you'd hoped for.

[Bush_JSM]

That's great - many thanks for all of your help.

I'll update this post of any outcome as it may help others in the future.

Thanks Dr Pete

GB