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I should have also mentioned the linking structure within the site.

All 23 versions of the product are linked from within 1 category that contains roughly 70 products. This is why the products must be kept separate. So users can browse the different specs alongside other products with similar comparable specs in the same category.

An example can be found here:  https://goo.gl/5L4cpK (its a little unordered at the moment but will be more organised soon)

Take the 572 series, on the page above, it has 11 variations, the link currently filters the results on the page all 11 models are currently canonical'd to one version of the page. The filter also produces a category page that isn't linked on the website   (https://goo.gl/c53sBY) This page is currently no-indexed.

How is the following for a solution?

Turn the 572 series filter link into a link to the 572 category page (https://goo.gl/c53sBY)
Change this page to be indexed and make its description a detailed guide to the full 572 series listing all models, options etc as you suggest
Make all the 572 products canonical of this super descriptive all singing and dancing page

The lack of options is the biggest problem, hopefully some people have some more ideas or i guess ill stick with is

Hi Patrick, thanks for taking a look.

I agree with your first comment regarding my example product. At the moment im just trying to clear out the duplicate content flags as there are 400 products all guilty of similar crimes. A lot of work needs to be done before i can address individual product descriptions and look to insert the schema. So whilst all the traffic is going to one version of the product at the moment, because of the duplicated content neither were ranking before, so this isn't a problem. In time i will indeed look to make them different, remove the canonical and give it unique content.

I like the idea of the "main product page containing all versions", however, wouldn't this just add another version of the product with more duplicate content? Would all the other products become canonicals of this main version that links back out to them all?

Because it listed the different models + contained all the tech specs etc woulnd't it be too different to utilise a canonical in this manner?

Hey Mozzers,

Questions around this have been asked time and time again. But i have a specific example I would like some advice on.

I have 2 products,

Product 1: https://goo.gl/Gzo1WC
Product 2: https://goo.gl/VbrHQJ

As you can see, the products are almost identical bar some technical specifications. The owner of the business wants them listing as 2 products, combining them into a single listing with configurable options is not an option.

As such I have simply made one a canonical of the other. Whilst not ideal this seems to be the best "SEO" fix.

Option 2: My second option is to rewrite the descriptions to they are different - not too hard on this product and a future options when i have more time, however....

I am presented with a similar problem for another product where there are 23 versions of the same product, i cannot rewrite the same info this many times. They are different sizes, ranges, capacities, resolutions and accuracies and must be listed separately but contain all the same features and basic product information. The basic info is too important not to talk about, and talking about all the technical specs would be too much and teaching the customers likely to buy them to suck eggs.

As such I have taken the 23 products and broken them down into 5 similar groups of 2 to 6 products. I have then picked 1 product from each group and written a unique description and changed all similar products in its group to match choosing 1product in each group as the canonical for all the others.

So 23 same products become 5 unique products with 18 duplicated products pointing to them as canonicals.

Any product pointing to another only differs in technical info, 95% of the page is the same.

Whilst obviously not ideal, Is this an acceptable use of canonicals?

No prob, let me know how things turn out (professional curiosity)

Like yourself my main project is dated in areas and a workaround is more cost effective than a rebuild, always interesting to see how people get around issues.

GL!

Sorry just want to check i understand this,

The product is originally created as domain.com/123456.html and is utilised at this url for a period of time.

You get the canonical url of domain.com/product-title.html later the day the product goes live.

You then create the canonical url and insert the canonical tags at a later time?

If all these are correct then it could explain why your having issues.

Google will crawl and index 123456.html pretty quickly, if this is the base url the product is created at you will most likely find that the links off your category pages use this url and any initial links use this url, this is bad for what you are trying to achieve.

When you then change to the canonical you create a situation where you have 2 copies of the page. 1 with loads of links pointing to it, especially internally, and another with no links. But your trying to tell google that the one with no links is the main version. I would bet this is why it is indexing both.

Even if  you change all of the links and add the correct canonical tag it can take time for google to change, even then it can choose to ignore it (it can be frustrating).

Ideally you want to create the canonical URL first or at the same time as the 123456.html url and instantly add all the canonical tags, this way that all default links that a created internally point to it, and the first time it gets crawled it is already pointing to the canonical url.

In your current timetable, I would say redirects would be more suitable than canonical for both the order you release them and the general use.

About your plan,

If your timings are correct, then sure, that doesn't sound like too much of a time commitment and i think the benefit would be worth it. What I would expect to see within the month is the de-indexing of all the 123456.html versions

**Just remember, check all your canonicals actually need a 301 before doing them on bulk. You may have places on your site that you have canonicals because both versions of a page are needed, don't redirect these in your haste

Hi Thomas,

Firstly, the canonical does the same job as the 301 (for all intensive purposes) without the physical redirect. So in theory only the canonical should be being indexed and all the link juice should be being passed.

The fact that both are indexed suggests that the canonical isn't behaving as intended

• I would check for common cannonical errors to begin with
• If this isn't the case, i would suggest that the 123456 version has too many links maybe internally and externally and that google is ignoring the canonical because it has too much authority.

An issue with using canonical like this is that people who use the search are not sent to the main canonical url. This gives people the opportunity to copy and link to the wrong version of the url, which isn't a practice you want.

A possible solution would be to find all backlinks and get them changed to the main canonical version internally and externally, this could be a lot of work.

The 301 redirect is better in my opinion because it achieves the following

• Customer always see a useful URL and the main canonical URL
• Because of this, links will only likely be built the the url you want
• Google will de-index the 123456 version because it becomes inaccessible

However, unless you can automate this procedure, it can take too much time to create all those 301's for every product.

Personally i use the following guidlines as i find it keeps things clean and tidy
301 any url that isn't domain.com/main-product-url.html
keep the canonical on domain.com/main-product-url.html  so that any version created from filtering or unexpected cms pages dont create duplicate content.

Ultimately people complain about DA because they lack the understanding of what it measures.

DA paints a picture of the hierarchy of the web and your "ranking" within the web. This is how DA was designed. As professionals we have chosen to utilise this ranking but sadly people are using it without first learning fully what it means and as such fall into pitfalls

The scale is designed to represent the whole web. The web is to large to simply divide into smaller sections that allow you to have a scale in which you can climb. If you define a static ceiling or remove the ceiling you either end up with all websites above the ceiling forcing it to be redefined anyway or allow DA to climb so high that it is unobtainable anyway.

DA can tell you everything you need it to, as long as you stop looking at it as a figure only you can influence.

Hi Oscar,

I answered a similar question to this a week or 2 ago but cant find it. Ill keep trying but here goes again

Moz Authority shouldn't be compared a month to month basis. It is not a direct reflection of how well or badly your website is doing. What it is, is an indication of how much authority you have COMPARED to other websites.

Lets say facebook is the top website and has 5000 links pointing to it. This means that DA 100 = 5000 links
During the same month your own website has 500 links. And is DA 30.

The following month facebook gains 1000 links. The benchmark for DA 100 now = 6000 links. Your own website gained 10 link but your DA dropped to 25.

Your website hasn't changed and you own backlink profile got stronger. However you lost DA. This is because the "standard" got higher. Likewise if the best website lost 1000 links and you did nothing your DA would climb.

As such you can't compare it month to month, but should compared it verses your competitors. As you saw from your attachment, all the website you are tracking dropped. So in relation to your direct competition you are still fine, there is nothing to worry about.

I would suggest that you consider the time of year. As Christmas approaches the internet goes link crazy as they begin to advertise and all sorts of reviews and recommendation are made. As such expect the best website particularly to gain massive amounts of links, this in turn increases the "standard". The result is, all website that havn't built as many links that month experience a drop in DA.

As long as you havn't experienced massive drops compared to competitors i wouldn't worry.

Hey Dmitrii,

They all seem to be set up correctly. No mistakes mentioned in the article are present.

I've given it about 3 weeks so far, which may or may not be long enough i suppose

Hey Mozzers,

We have several products that all have upto 6 different versions, they are the same product but in a different specification. As users search via these specifications (within our website) it is beneficial to keep all 6 products as different listings on the website. In google however it is not.

So we kept all 6 listing but chose 1 to be the google landing page, the only different between them all is the technical specification + occasionally size. But 95% of the pages are the same.

Let call the products A, B, C, D, E, F, we made all the canonicals point to C because this is out best selling version of the product. However, google has chosen E to rank instead.

What is my best move here? Should i accept the page google has chosen and change the canonicals the point to that version or should I be stubborn and try to get google to change which version it ranks.

As always many thanks.

Morning Mozzers,

We have finally come to the point where we can start to focus on making good original content.

We were wondering how you guys come up with ideas for your content. We are currently doing lots of keyword research to gather ideas and subject areas. But we are struggling with 'angles of attack'.

Being an eCommerce site it is easy to do lots of "The 5 best products for this" type of content. But we feel there is limited value in these especially if we want to gain links to our articles in future as valued content.

How do you come up with your ideas for more valuable and linkable content especially in very niche product areas.

Thanks all.

Sure thing,

Using a canonical only would still let you access mysite.com/index.html and would display that url in the browser. This means 2 things, firstly a user can see this url (and it can look a little messy) if they happen to find their way onto this page and 2, they may link to your website using this url (many people copy and paste links from the browser window). Whilst this isn't a problem as the canonical would pass link juice anyway it makes things a little "messy".

A 301 would do exactly the same as the canonical in terms of passing link juice etc but it wouldn't let the user access mysite.com/index.html  they would be redirected to mysite.com  removing the possibility anyone would see or link to  index.html

Both solutions fix your problem, one is just a little neater.

Hi Jorge, sorry for the delay responding i was away for the weekend.

You most likely don't have any links pointing the   mysite.com/index.html

Index.html is the default hompage for most websites. mysite.com  technically points to a folder and searches for the index.html file within this folder. As such, both address for your homepage are nearly always found.

A canonical will fix this, if you have the non-www version as your preferred domain go with

Many people prefer to 301 redirect this page as its neater in the browser. But the canonical will do the job.

Hi Jorge,

lets take it from the top

Moz tries to show you, and report on how google would see you site.

When you type in a url, the browser and server holding and displaying the website doesn't care if you use capitals or lowercase, for their purpose it is the same page. This is why you will have only created this page once on whatever web platform you are using. However, google sees them differently, each one as a different page.

You could access this page from any combination of capital letters even something stupid like

mysite.com/CoNtAcT-Us.html

These hundred of variations are never picked up on simply because we dont use them.

Lets presume you wanted the the page to be reachable at  "mysite.com/contact-us.html" and made it this way. The reason the second variation has been picked up on is most likely because you have used it (or someone else has) to link to that page. Somewhere somebody will have  Link Text

Because of this link the second variation is found and because google treats it as a different page, moz is reporting it as a different page.

It is a similiar case with your

mysite.com
mysite.com/index.html

Is is the same page accessible at 2 different urls.

To combat this, you need to use a solution such as

1. Canonical Tags (Recomended)

On your homepage get this code inserted between the tags

On your contact page get this code inserted between the tags

This will cause all versions of this page that are "accidentally made" to say "Hey, im just a copy of this page"

2. 301 Redirects
 The second solution is to put a 301 redirect in place, this varies depending on what web platform you are on. This simply redirects the user and any crawl bot to the intented page

i.e.  someone tries to go to   mysite.com/index.html and your website stops it loading and sends them to mysite.com

This is normally done by editing your htaaccess file. If you want to go this road tell us what platform you website is on and we can give you instructions.

@EGOL

I asked a similar question back in September and got a different response. Would you mind taking a look and commenting as i value your opinion. https://moz.com/community/q/display-none-read-more-implimentation

Hey Mike,

Nope nothing to worry about. Moz Domain Authority is always jumping an and down. This is how its designed. It shouldn't be compared month to month as the previous month has no bearing on the next. Instead you should judge it on how well you are doing compared to your competitors.

Rand posted an article about it this month (https://moz.com/community/q/da-pa-fluctuations-how-to-interpret-apply-understand-these-ml-based-scores) Took me ages to find it... turns out it was pinned to the top of the forums... typical

In summary
The best website on the web has DA 100. This month they have 5000 links.
You are DA  30 and have 1000 links

If the following month the best website gains 3000 more links so its at 8000 links - the DA 100 benchmark has moved
Compared to this benchmark you are not as authoritative as you were, your DA has dropped you are now
DA 25 and still have 1000 links

Your site hasn't change and you have no extra links. But compared to the best website you are slightly worse.

As long as everyone else in your niche has done the same don't worry.
If however, you drop 5 DA and your competitor gains 2 DA. They have improved their link profile much more than you have yours and you should look to act.

DA is also affected by changes to the moz algorithm as they prioritise different factors to get a better reflection of how google perceives your website.

So the simple rule. Compare yourselves to your competitors not to last months DA alone.

Hi C Pagan,

It been a little while since my wordpress days so bare with me.

Wordpress themes normally add a page title in the form of a heading to many pages - The hide title option as far an i am aware removes this heading, either by stopping the code generating it or moving it way off the page where it is not visible.

If this is still correct, then the hide title features will have no impact - the error from moz it talking about the Title bar - this is the text that appears on the tab in your browser, you can preview it in its full length in most browsers by mousing over it for a few seconds. You can use this to preview any changes you make without having to wait for the listing to change in google.

I would imaging your titles are being automatically generated using the page name plus a prefix or suffix and together it has become to long

I think in yoast you do something like SEO → Titles & Metas to get where this is editable, but it has been a while.

Ow im sorry, totally mis understood - sorry if i was explaining something you understood.

Moz use

you said they use

/> i presume now you mean the / at the end of the tag.

This is an old school closing tag. HTML elements were traditionally opened and closed in HTML versions before HTML5. Normally this is done obviously with tags such the opener "

" and closer  "

". However some elements dont have a seperate closing tag such as "" tags. In older html versions these were closed using the format

Missing these tags didn't used to do much as most browsers rendered the page correctly anyways, but best practice was to include the / to close elements. However with the dawn of HTML5 things changed.

HTML5 doesn't require the closing tag. Elements that used to require one now simply dont. Browsers still understand both versions absolutely fine and its kinda ok to use either. But the most modern and correct practice is to use it without.

Edit:

Racking my brain, i believe the / was added as best practice to assure compatibility with XHTML which was pegged to be the next version of HTML. When XHTML was scrapped in favour of HTML5 it changed. Somebody may correct me on this one though

Looks fine to me, i think you misunderstand Mistake 2

They are using an absolute URL

If they did the "mistake 2" their canonical tag would look like

---

You canonical tags should always be absolute for good practice

is correct

or any variant of this would be wrong