how to set rel canonical on wordpress.com sites

[SOtBOrlando]

I know how to do this with a wordpress.org site but I have a client that does not want to switch and without a plugin I am lost. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jeremy Wood

[nans]

Can you install the Yoast plugin?

[SOtBOrlando]

No you can not install plugins on wordpress.com I wish.

[adamxj2]

That's a pain! Why would they not want to switch? The Yoast plugin makes is way easier. But you can set the canonical tags through your Google WMT. Here's a resource to help you to do that: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?rd=1

Hope that helps!

[evolvingSEO]

Thanks for chiming in! Although that Google resources does give some ways to mitigating issues that a canonical tag tries to help with, it's not really a way to literally add a canonical meta tag - which is what the OP is likely looking to do (although I do recommend to the OP to be sure you've done the other things as the Google article states.) Just wanted to clarify that

-Dan (Moz Associate)

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Jeremy

To my knowledge this is not possible with wordpress.com - this is a little old but states such is the case: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/is-it-possible-to-embed-canonical-url-in-my-posts-and-pages

adamxj2 posted a good link below from Google, which gives some other steps you can take to help mitigate common issues a canonical tag is meant to address. I find that very often people use canonicals as a band aid anyway, instead of a deeper fix - so there is likely another way to achieve what you need to.