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Just to bring closure to this thread, I never found an answer for this and simply ended up using the common syntax for 301 redirects in htaccess.

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html

Hello,

7 days ago, we implemented canonical tags to resolve duplicate content issues that had been caused by URL parameters. These "duplicate content" had already been indexed.

Now that the URLs have rel canonical tags in place, will Google automatically remove from its index the other URLs with the URL parameters?

I ask because we have been tracking the approximate number of URLs indexed by doing a site: search in Google, and we have barely noticed a decrease in URLs indexed.

Thanks.

No I haven't tried it because I'm reluctant to try something as important as a 301 redirect without fully understanding it and knowing it will perform as intended.

Hi guys,

about 10 minutes ago, I finally found the underlying problem in magento between 301 redirects and canonical tags - part of the reason why it was hard to identify was because the problem is not constant through all pages.

Anyway now that I found the problem, I have about 50 301 redirects to implement via .htaccess. Now I know the regular syntax is

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html

But I'm wondering if there's a way that the base domain doesn't have to be specified in the second half of this line. Something like:

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html /newpage.html

I'm sure this can be done, somehow.

Thanks!

I'm going to look into our canonical tags first - I think this is the best place to start.

Once this is done, I'll wait a week and see if the next scan yields fewer errors.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks.

Hello,

I have a 2-fold question:

1. Crawl Diagnostics is picking up a lot of Duplicate Page Title errors, and as far as I can tell, all of them are cause by URL parameters trailing the URL.

We use a Magento store, and all filtering attributes, categories, product pages etc are tagged on as URL parameters.

example:

Main URL:
/accessories.html

Duplicated Title Page URLs:

/accessories.html?dir=asc&order=position
/accessories.html?mode=list
/accessories.html?mode=grid
...and many others

How can I make the Crawl Diagnostics not identify these as errors?

2. Now from an SEO point of view, all these URL parameters are been picked up by google, and are listed in WedMaster Tools -> URL parameters.

All URL parameters are set to "let google decide".

I remember having read that Google was smart enough here to make the right decision, and we shouldn't have to worry about it.

Is this true, or is there a larger issue at hand here?

Thankas!

Hi guys,

we've successfully optimized our home page such that it receives a Grade A for 3 completely different, high traffic keywords. Looking forward to seeing the results!

The keywords in question were identified by using the monthly searches reported from the Google Keyword Tool.

For one of the keywords, the Google Keyword Tool differentiates between what I thought would be seen as being the same. For example, let's say Google reports these three keywords as high traffic keywords:

tea cup
tea cups
the tea cup

Using the On-Page Report Card, we get a Grade A for 'tea cup', but we get an F for the other 2 terms!

I thought Google searches didn't really care about the plural form or adding the word 'the' in front.

How should we interpret the result from the On-Page Report Card for the plural form of the keyword and with the word 'the' added in front?

Would you track all 3 instances of the keyword independtly in your campaign, or would you just track 'tea cup'?

Thanks!

Great - thanks for the info guys!

Hello,

I'm wondering, are 'nofollow' links from websites with high domain authority beneficial? Would they boost our own DA?

In essence, I'm wondering if there is added value (other than visitors clicking the link) to being linked to by a 'nofollow' link.

Thanks!

Will do.

the 301s will stay because they redirect the old (indexed and ranking) URL's to the new ones.

The Canonical Tags will all be removed.

Then 1 more question:
How do you suggest I deal with URL parameters that cause duplicate content. Some examples:

?color=
?manufacturer=
?width=

etc. We have hundreds of these - they are used to allow customers to filter or sort the product listings.

Should we set them to be ignored via Webmaster tools?

Thanks for the info Shane.

Regarding pagination:
let's say we sell staplers.

?p=1 will be the first 10 stapler models
?p=2 will be stapler models 11-20
?p=3 will be stapler models 21-30
...and so on. Each page presents a different set of stapler models.
Keep in mind that each URL has the same Title and Meta Info.

We could choose to show all staplers on a single page and eliminate pagination, but this would affect loading time.

Yes we incidentally use Canonical tags and 301 redirects, which were implemented for different reasons.

The 301 redirect was implemented to redirect from old category URLs on old website (no longer live) which were indexed and had good ranking to the new category URLs on the new website.

The canonical URL on the other hand was implemented in hope of avoiding duplicate content of the new URLs.
For example if you were to navigate to the URL

www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=1

You would see the stapler models 1 to 10 of 50 (so 5 pages).
Now you can either go to the next pages, or you can 'filter'.

Let's say you choose to filter by color, because you really want a red stapler, the resulting URL would be

www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?color=red

You could now choose to filter by other characteristics or go to the next page (still with red filter on), so the URL would be

www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?color=red?p=2

Again, since all that's happening here is either changing page or filtering the products, the Title and Meta Info is the same, but the URLs are different, and the selection of products being presented is also different.

Hi everyone, I'm new here - always loved SEOMoz and glad to be part of the Pro community now.

I have 2 questions regarding the Canonical URL tag.

Some background info:

We used to run an OsCommerce store, and recently migrated to Magento. In doing so, we right away created 301 redirects of the old category pages (OsCommerce) to the new category pages (Magento) via the Magento admin. Example:

www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
301 redicrected to
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html

In Magento admin, we have enabled the Canonical tag for all product and category pages. Here's how Magento sets up the Canonical tag:

The URL of interest which we want to rank is:
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html

However Magento sets up the canonical tag on this page to point to:
www.example.com/old-widget-category.html

When using the SEOMoz On Page Report Card, it pick this up as an error because the Canonical tag is pointing to a different URL.

However, if we dig a little deeper, we see that the URL being pointed to
www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
has a 301 redirect to
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html
which is the URL we wan to rank.

So because we set up a 301 redirect of the old-page to the new-page, on the new-page the canonical tag points to the old-page.

Question 1)
What are you opinions on this? Do you think this method of setting up the Canonical tag is acceptable?

Second question...

We use pagination for category pages, so if we have 50 products in one category, we would have 5 pages of 10 products. The URL's would be:

www.example.com/new-widget-category.html (which is the SAME as ?p=1)
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=1
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=2
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=3
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=4
www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=5

Now ALL the URLs above have the canonical tag set as:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/new-widget-category" />

However, the content of each page (page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is different because different products are displayed. So far most what I read regarding the Canonical tag is that it is used for pages that have the same content but different URLs.

I would hope that Google would combine the content of all 5 pages and view the result as a single URL www.example.com/new-widget-category

Question 2) Is using the canonical tag appropriate in the case described above?

Thanks !