Quick Rel Canonical Link Juice Question

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Let's say I have two duplicate pages, A and B. However, A has 5 external links and B has 3 _different _external links. If I add the rel canonical tag to B, so that A is the "master page" do I also lose whatever link juice was going to B from the 3 external links?

[Davenport-Tractor]

KempRugeLawGroup

The Canonical page reference is supposed to be used to tell the spiders that these 2 pages are identical. Sounds like if you have different links on 2 separate pages then they are no longer identical.

That being said there are all sorts of reasons why you may want to canonical one page to another. Hec if I could get Microsoft to Canonical their website to my storefront I would jump at the chance to pass their link juice to my site.

So here is what we are seeing with our Canonical pages. The original or lead page, page A in your example improves in its link juice, and becomes the dominant page, the second page, or page B in your case does not loose importance or have less link juice, it only serves to bolster page A.

So what this effectively does is tell the search engines how to order their results for 2 identical pages. But how does this work for two different pages? If we are selling widgets, and thing-a-ma-bobs. Neither page looses its importance in search engines as long as we are targeting different keywords and optimization for each page.

but once they are identical, then we are ranking the more important page.

[gazzerman1]

No Both pages stay exactly as they are. A canonical tag does not work like a 301 redirect.

John Mueller at Google has stated in the past that even if you use a canonical tag it is only an indication to Google as to what page to use, Google will still make its own decision, both pages will always remain on your site and each of those pages will have a different link profile that will affect them differently.

Adding a canonical tag will not merge the link profile, If you wanted to get the link juice to merge from B to A then a 301 is your best bet.

Hope that helps

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Well, unless I missed something, does that mean someone from another website could copy one of my posts, target different keywords, add a rel canonical tag, and suffer no penalty? A lot of my content would be universal, if it were not targeted to my service area. For example, why you should hire a divorce attorney in Tampa?

Could someone in Orlando just do the above steps and be fine? (Change Tampa to Orlando, Target Orlando, add a rel canonical).

Thanks!

[Chris_CM]

Hi KempRugeLawGroup,

If the two pages are exactly identical, you may want to 301 redirect page B to page A to consolidate the link juice flowing to both pages A and B from external sources.  If you could provide us with some more context as to why you are pursuing a rel=canonical instead of a redirect, we may be able to provide more specific advice.

And to your latest post, if a site were to copy your post and change only a few words, the site would be penalized for duplicate content (unless the copy were significantly changed).

Regards,

Chris

[gazzerman1]

Adding a canonical tag from another domain is a whole different matter.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

Google is aware of where it found content first and the tricks people use to try and fool it. This subject has been brought up numerous times in Google Hangouts.

"While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible." Google

There is no "penalty" for duplicate content, Google calls them Algorithmic devaluations. content theft has been an issue for years and making small changes to content does not work well anymore.

Also look into Google Authorship for further protection.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Hey Chris,

I don't have anymore context; it was just a thought experiment. I'm doing my best to wrap my head around in foreseeable issues I might have.

Thanks for the help,

Ruben