Using the canonical tag across multiple domains...

[Manny2000]

Hi guys I am looking for some help in regards to using canonical tags in other domains that have similar content to our main site.

Would this be the right way to go about it? For example www.main.com is the website i would like to achieve best ranking with, but i also have other websites, www.secondary.com and www.somethingelse.com which have similar content and all link back to www.main.com

So in order to make sure the google bot knows these other pages are a reference to the main.com page can i put a canonical tag in secondary.com that goes like this: rel="canonical" href="www.main.com" /> and put that same tag in somethingelse.com

Would i achieve a better ranking for doing so on main.com or am i on the wrong track and will doing so not change a thing?

I hope I'm making sense

Best regards,

Manny

[MoosaHemani]

Manny, In my opinion with other domains the process that you have defined is fine and you can go with this but the question that will it increase traffic/rankings to the website is not true in all cases... this might and might not increase rankings of the website as no one knows how exactly Google works!

I think if the link value of 2^nd and 3^rd domain are good then my suggestion is to 301 redirect the domain to the main website and the reason is because it will pass the link juice... when one website will have all the link juice there is a strong possibility of the website to rank higher against competitive and targeted key phrases.

The reason why you should redirect 301 instead of canonical is because the 2^nd and 3^rd domain will leave their rankings once you will add canonical tag so it’s better to redirect so that you can enjoy the link juice of 2^nd and 3^rd domain if available.

[Dr-Pete]

I tend to agree with Moosa that cross-domain canonical can be a bit unpredictable. In theory, it can work well for syndicated (or anything like syndicated) content, and I've heard of examples where it worked very well. Some big newspapers use it, for example. There are also cases where Google can choose to ignore cross-domain canonical, so sometimes you have to try it and see. The good news is that the risk is low - worst case, it just won't do much.

Of course, it can keep your other sites from ranking for that same content, but it sounds like that's what you intend anyway. My gut reaction is that it should boost the main site somewhat - I just don't know how much.

My only warning about the 301-redirect is that these approaches are very different in one respect - the visitors. A 301-redirect will take visitors from one site to the other. A cross-domain canonical only impacts Google. The 301-redirect is typically more powerful in this case, but it may not be appropriate for your scenario.