Should we NOINDEX NOFOLLOW canonical pages?

[BeytzNet]

Hi,

I was window shopping at Gemvara and noticed something interesting...

They rank very high for long-tail phrases such as "rose gold engagement rings" and in their pagination pages for that category not only they filled canonical to the main category page (which is logic) but also they "NOINDEX NOFOLLOW" the pages...

Is that recommended?

Thanks

[Devanur-Rafi]

Hi, when you have the rel=canonical implementation in place, you don't need to bother about noindex or nofollow for those pages as they will not be indexed. When you have noindex with nofollow in place, you don't need the rel=canonical implemented as it does not make any sense. Hope that helps my friend.

Best regards,

Devanur Rafi

[AlanMosley]

Devanur is correct, the canonical will never be seen if you no index.

Also you should use noindex,follow not nofollow, using no follow means all link juice pointing to those pages will be lost, using follow means the link juice can flow back out of the pages

[BeytzNet]

Dear Alan,

May I ask then what would you do with a shopping cart page?

It usually receives params in the URL so I generally add rel=canonical to the page without the params (which still holds some basic information like random testimonial, guarantee etc.).

Another option is to place everything in cookies (and therefore not using params and no need for canonical). But this is bit more complex and cookie dependent.

Thanks

[AlanMosley]

Depends on how unique the pages are.

if the pages using params are quite unique then I would just leave them be, if they are no very unique then using the canonicals the best bet.

[Devanur-Rafi]

100% agree with Alan here  as the purpose of rel=canonical implementation is to hint Google about the non-preferred pages (the duplicate or near duplicate pages of their original versions or the preferred ones) and not to index them.

Best,

Devanur Rafi