Rel-canonical tag confusion

[aircyclemegan]

I had our web development company implement the rel-canonical tag on all pages of our website to get rid of the duplicate content months ago. However, when I use the On Page optimizer tool (in previous version) it would tell me I'm not using the rel-canonical tag correctly on the page I was grading and when I untagged use rel-canonical tag in our CMS (which was pointing to the correct page) my grade would go to an A. Now with the new version it says I'm using it wrong either way, when I have the tag used in my CMS and everything else is good I have a B, but one I click to not use Rel-canonical tag I have a C. Both ways it shows up in On-page tool without a check in Apprpriate Use of Rel Canonical.

I've attached pictures. In C version it says - Canonical URL "/info/solutions/" and "/info/solutions/"

In B version: Canonical URL "/info/solutions/"

What am I doing wrong and how do i fix this? Because ALL of my grades have dropped to Bs and Cs.

Thanks!

iklEHOjJLZE4966 [URL]]([URL=http://imgur.com/5BYcV][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5BYcV.jpg[/IMG][/URL]) 5BYcV

[RyanKent]

The first and third images appear the same to me, and the second image is a broken link.

"/info/solutions/" is not a complete URL. It can't be indexed.

Can you possibly share the URL to an example of a web page with this issue?

[aircyclemegan]

http://www.aircycle.com/info/solutions/

[aircyclemegan]

the missing one just shows the Canonical url listing the rest of the URL twice.

B version: "/info/solutions/"

c version: "/Info/solutions/" and "/info/solutions/"

[RyanKent]

I am going to take my best guess, which would need to be tested.

The tool is seeing a partial URL and it does not like it. The best way to confirm the issue is add the complete URL and then test the page. If it passes, then I am correct.

<link href='http://www.aircycle.com/info/solutions/' rel='canonical' />

[aircyclemegan]

So does the tag still work with the partial URL or no? It worked before, so I'm not sure what the ordeal is now but that the new CMS is causing SEOmoz some difficulty reading this.

I'd have to have my web development company fix it to the full URL.

[RyanKent]

The tag should work fine with the partial URL.

If you are still concerned about the warning, try adding the base href tag within the of your page. It would be as follows:

<base href="http://www.aircycle.com/">

This tag explicitly specifies the base URL to which all partial URLs are built upon for a given page. Try adding this tag to just the one page, then running the report again to see if that resolves the issue. If it does, then you know what change the tool is requesting.

To be clear, the canonical tag you are using should be fine for search engines assuming there is no other issue. This may be a specific issue with the tool.

Since testing the base href tag, and the full URL are relatively quick and easy to do, my suggestion is to spend 10 minutes performing these tests to see the results. If the tests work, then you can contact the SEOmoz help desk and report your findings as an issue with the tool. It could be a bug or limitation with the tool.