Set Canonical for Paginated Content

[jeeyer]

Hi Guys,

This is a follow up on this thread: http://moz.com/community/q/dynamic-url-parameters-woocommerce-create-404-errors#

I would like to know how I can set a canonical link in Wordpress/Woocommerce which points to "View All" on category pages on our webshop.
The categories on my website can be viewed as 24/48 or All products but because the quanity constantly changes viewing 24 or 48 products isn't always possible.

To point Google in the right direction I want to let them know that "View All" is the best way to go.
I've read that Google's crawler tries to do this automatically but not sure if this is the case on on my website.

Here is some more info on the issue: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en
Thanks for the help!

Joost

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Joost

Did you happen to take a look at SEO Guide to Google Webmaster Recommendations for Pagination? There are some great tips in there that can help you implement this.

Also, View-all in search results & 5 common mistakes with rel=canonical from Google also has some tips.

Hope these help a bit! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!

[jeeyer]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for helping out. I've read a lot about the theory behind View All and why & when it's better to set canonicals on page 2 and 3 to View All.
But I can't seem to find any information how to implement the rel canonical in wordpress/woocommerce.

I know that Google will try to sort it out by itself (if View All) is available but helping them with a canonical will solve a lot of 404 crawls on our site.
Any ideas?

Joost

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Joost

It would be better to just "noindex" anything except view all. Then once they are gone from the index, set a block in robots.txt so they can't be crawled anymore. That fixes the issue at the source, the canonical is more of a bandaid. So:

1. Add a meta "noindex" tag to everything except view all (I am not 100% sure how in your wordpress setup - there's no one way, it depends on your setup).

2. Monitor the indexation of these pages in Google and wait for them to be removed (you can check with just searching for the URL in the search bar).

3. Once they are all gone from the index, block crawlers from accessing them by adding a line to your robots.txt file blocking the 24/48 URLs - again, I don't know the exact code for your robots.txt because I am unsure of your URL setup, but a dev or someone can help - or feel free to write back with these details and I'll try to help further.

[jeeyer]

Wow Dan!

Thanks for looking in to this!

I assume you are totally right but have no idea how I should implement this strategy on my site. It just a plain wordpress install with woocommerce. I use Yoast (ofcourse) but never went in-depth with robot.txt.

How can I provide you with more info? Or better; myself

Thanks again,

Joost

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Joost

Can you provide examples of how all your URLs are setup? What does the URL look like for view all, 24 items etc etc?

[jeeyer]

Hi Dan,
Thanks for your reply.
 For the category t-shirt I've got this:

/product-category/t-shirts/?show_products=24 (24)
/product-category/t-shirts/?show_products=48 (48)
/product-category/t-shirts/?show_products=41 (when All selected)

Let me know! And thanks again for your time! Really apreciate it!Joost

[evolvingSEO]

Joost

I think you'll need to get a developer or someone involved to help execute, but here's the ideal scenerio:

1. Add meta "noindex" tags to ?show_products=24 and 48
2. Make your 'view all' URL ideally just /product-category/t-shirts/ - with no parameter - or if you have to, maybe /t-shirts/all/ - your goal here is to keep it consistent and NOT the same parameter as the other pages
3. Then, whatever consistent URL you have for the 'all' - don't add "noindex" to that (keep it indexable).
4. Wait for Google to remove 24/48 URLs from the index (you have to just check every week or two with site: searches)
5. Once they are noindexed, block crawling with robots.txt with this line:

Disallow: /?show_products= <---but ONLY use that if you've changed your 'view all' URLs to something else! You ideally want a different URL structure for 'view all' vs. not view all to control crawling and indexation more easily.

[jeeyer]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the explanation. 
Ok so I block 24 and 48 for Google but users can still use them to navigate through the site. 
I assume this is woocommerce related because Woocommerce creates the output for the productpages right?

Thanks again!

Joost

[evolvingSEO]

Joost - that's correct! Yes, I assume woocommerce, since they are product pages.