{"id":24749,"date":"2013-04-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical\/"},"modified":"2013-04-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T00:00:00","slug":"5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical","status":"publish","type":"ar_kb","link":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical\/","title":{"rendered":"5 common mistakes with rel=canonical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"gargardate\">Monday, April 08, 2013<\/p>\n<aside class=\"key-point\">It&#8217;s been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore). <code>rel=\"prev\"<\/code> and <code>rel=\"next\"<\/code> are no longer supported.<\/aside>\n<p>\n  Including a<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/specify-canonical\/\"><code>rel=canonical<\/code> link<\/a><br \/>\n  in your webpage is a strong hint to search engines your about preferred version to index among<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/specify-canonical\/\">duplicate pages on the web<\/a>.<br \/>\n  It&#8217;s supported by several search engines, including<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ysearchblog.com\/2009\/02\/12\/fighting-duplication-adding-more-arrows-to-your-quiver\/\" class=\"external-link\">Yahoo!<\/a>,<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/community\/site_blogs\/b\/webmaster\/archive\/2009\/02\/12\/partnering-to-help-solve-duplicate-content-issues.aspx\" class=\"external-link\">Bing<\/a>,<br \/>\n  and Google. The <code>rel=canonical<\/code> link consolidates indexing properties from the<br \/>\n  duplicates, like their inbound links, as well as specifies which URL you&#8217;d like displayed in<br \/>\n  search results. However, <code>rel=canonical<\/code> can be a bit tricky because it&#8217;s not very<br \/>\n  obvious when there&#8217;s a misconfiguration.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-adf57b7e3b0c.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example of a page and its HTML markup for rel-canonical.\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  While the webmaster sees the &#8220;red velvet&#8221; page on the left in their browser, search engines notice<br \/>\n  on the webmaster&#8217;s unintended &#8220;blue velvet&#8221; <code>rel=canonical<\/code> on the right. We recommend<br \/>\n  the following best practices for using <code>rel=canonical<\/code>:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    A large portion of the duplicate page&#8217;s content should be present on the canonical version.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"note\">\n      One test is to imagine you don&#8217;t understand the language of the content\u2014if you placed the<br \/>\n      duplicate side-by-side with the canonical, does a very large percentage of the words of the<br \/>\n      duplicate page appear on the canonical page? If you need to speak the language to understand<br \/>\n      that the pages are similar; for example, if they&#8217;re only topically similar but not extremely<br \/>\n      close in exact words, the canonical designation might be disregarded by search engines.<br \/>\n    <\/aside>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n    Double-check that your <code>rel=canonical<\/code> target exists (it&#8217;s not an error or<br \/>\n    &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/google-bilgi-bankasi\/troubleshoot-google-search-crawling-errors\/#soft-404-errors\"><code>soft 404<\/code><\/a>&#8220;).\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Verify the <code>rel=canonical<\/code> target doesn&#8217;t contain a noindex <span>robots<\/span> <code>meta<\/code> tag.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Make sure you&#8217;d prefer the <code>rel=canonical<\/code> URL to be displayed in search results<br \/>\n    (rather than the duplicate URL).\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Include the <code>rel=canonical<\/code> link in either the <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> of the page<br \/>\n    or the HTTP header.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Specify no more than one <code>rel=canonical<\/code> for a page. When more than one is specified,<br \/>\n    all <code>rel=canonical<\/code> links will be ignored.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"mistake-1:-rel=canonical-to-the-first-page-of-a-paginated-series\" tabindex=\"-1\">Mistake 1: <code>rel=canonical<\/code> to the first page of a paginated series<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Imagine that you have an article that spans several pages:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>example.com\/article?story=cupcake-news&amp;page=1<\/li>\n<li>example.com\/article?story=cupcake-news&amp;page=2<\/li>\n<li>and so on<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n  Specifying a <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from page 2 (or any later page) to page 1 is not correct<br \/>\n  use of <code>rel=canonical<\/code>, as these are not duplicate pages. Using<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> in this instance would result in the content on pages 2 and beyond not<br \/>\n  being indexed at all.\n<\/p>\n<figure>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-eebe0da34bdb.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example of wrong rel-canonical markups.\"><figcaption>\n    Good content (for example, &#8220;cookies are superior nutrition&#8221; and &#8220;to vegetables&#8221;) is lost when<br \/>\n    specifying <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from component pages to the first page of a series.<br \/>\n  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-3017bf9fd543.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for annotating a page-series with rel-canonical that points to a single page with all the content of the series.\"><figcaption>\n    <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from component pages to the view-all page<br \/>\n  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure>\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-0b3e0e11cea0.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for annotating pages with rel-canonical and the deprecated rel-prev-next annotations.\"><figcaption>\n    If <code>rel=canonical<\/code> to a view-all page isn&#8217;t designated, paginated content can use<br \/>\n    <code>rel=\"prev\"<\/code> and <code>rel=\"next\"<\/code> markup.<br \/>\n  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 id=\"mistake-2:-absolute-urls-mistakenly-written-as-relative-urls\" tabindex=\"-1\">Mistake 2: Absolute URLs mistakenly written as relative URLs<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-9573f6011aad.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for incorrect rel-canonical markup: wrong relative URLs\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  The <code>&lt;link&gt;<\/code> tag, like many HTML tags, accepts both relative and absolute URLs.<br \/>\n  Relative URLs include a path &#8220;relative&#8221; to the current page. For example,<br \/>\n  <code>images\/cupcake.png<\/code> means &#8220;from the current directory go to the <code>images<\/code><br \/>\n  subdirectory, then to <code>cupcake.png<\/code>.&#8221; Absolute URLs specify the full path\u2014including the<br \/>\n  scheme like <code>https:\/\/<\/code>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Specifying <code>&lt;link rel=canonical href=\"example.com\/cupcake.html\" \/&gt;<\/code> (a relative<br \/>\n  URL since there&#8217;s no <code>https:\/\/<\/code>) implies that the desired canonical URL is<br \/>\n  <code>https:\/\/<strong>example.com\/example.com<\/strong>\/cupcake.html<\/code> even though that is<br \/>\n  almost certainly not what was intended. In these cases, our algorithms may ignore the specified<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code>. Ultimately this means that whatever you had hoped to accomplish with<br \/>\n  this <code>rel=canonical<\/code> will not come to fruition.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"mistake-3:-unintended-or-multiple-declarations-of-rel=canonical\" tabindex=\"-1\">Mistake 3: Unintended or multiple declarations of <code>rel=canonical<\/code><\/h2>\n<p>\n  Occasionally, we see <code>rel=canonical<\/code> designations that we believe are unintentional. In<br \/>\n  very rare circumstances we see simple typos, but more commonly a busy site owner copies a page<br \/>\n  template without thinking to change the target of the <code>rel=canonical<\/code>. Now the site<br \/>\n  owner&#8217;s pages specify a <code>rel=canonical<\/code> to the template author&#8217;s site.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-2da079806e8c.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for incorrect rel-canonical markup: incorrect URL\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  If you use a template, check that you didn&#8217;t also copy the <code>rel=canonical<\/code><br \/>\n  specification.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Another issue is when pages include multiple <code>rel=canonical<\/code> links to different URLs.<br \/>\n  This happens frequently in conjunction with SEO plugins that often insert a default<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> link, possibly unbeknownst to the webmaster who installed the plugin.<br \/>\n  In cases of multiple declarations of <code>rel=canonical<\/code>, Google will likely ignore all the<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> hints. Any benefit that a legitimate <code>rel=canonical<\/code> might<br \/>\n  have offered will be lost.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In both these types of cases, double-checking the page&#8217;s source code will help correct the issue.<br \/>\n  Be sure to check the entire <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> section as the <code>rel=canonical<\/code><br \/>\n  links may be spread apart.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-18f008eb4015.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for incorrect rel-canonical markup: multiple rel-canonical annotations.\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  Check the behavior of plugins by looking at the page&#8217;s source code.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"mistake-4:-category-or-landing-page-specifies-rel=canonical-to-a-featured-article\" tabindex=\"-1\">\n  Mistake 4: Category or landing page specifies <code>rel=canonical<\/code> to a featured article<br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p>\n  Let&#8217;s say you run a site about desserts. Your dessert site has useful category pages like<br \/>\n  &#8220;pastry&#8221; and &#8220;gelato.&#8221; Each day the category pages feature a unique article. For instance,<br \/>\n  your pastry landing page might feature &#8220;red velvet cupcakes.&#8221; Because the &#8220;pastry&#8221; category<br \/>\n  page has nearly all the same content as the &#8220;red velvet cupcake&#8221; page, you add a<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from the category page to the featured individual article.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  If we were to accept this <code>rel=canonical<\/code>, then your pastry category page would not<br \/>\n  appear in search results. That&#8217;s because the <code>rel=canonical<\/code> signals that you would<br \/>\n  prefer search engines display the canonical URL in place of the duplicate. However, if you want<br \/>\n  users to be able to find both the category page and featured article, it&#8217;s best to only have a<br \/>\n  self-referential <code>rel=canonical<\/code> on the category page, or none at all.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-4c7a726472fc.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for incorrect rel-canonical markup: non authoritative URL for the page\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  Remember that the canonical designation also implies the preferred display URL. Avoid adding a<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from a category or landing page to a featured article.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"mistake-5:-rel=canonical-in-the-body\" tabindex=\"-1\">Mistake 5: <code>rel=canonical<\/code> in the <code>&lt;body&gt;<\/code><\/h2>\n<p>\n  The <code>rel=canonical<\/code> link tag should only appear in the <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> of an<br \/>\n  HTML document. Additionally, to avoid HTML parsing issues, it&#8217;s good to include the<br \/>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> as early as possible in the <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code>. When we<br \/>\n  encounter a <code>rel=canonical<\/code> designation in the <code>&lt;body&gt;<\/code>, it&#8217;s<br \/>\n  disregarded.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This is an easy mistake to correct. Simply double-check that your <code>rel=canonical<\/code> links<br \/>\n  are always in the <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> of your page, and as early as possible if you can.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/kb-gorsel\/g-0101689331df.png\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Example for incorrect rel-canonical markup: rel-canonical annotation in the HTML body element.\"><\/p>\n<p>\n  <code>rel=canonical<\/code> designations in the <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> are processed, not the<br \/>\n  <code>&lt;body&gt;<\/code>.\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"conclusion\" tabindex=\"-1\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>To create valuable <code>rel=canonical<\/code> designations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n    Verify that most of the main text content of a duplicate page also appears in the canonical<br \/>\n    page.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Check that <code>rel=canonical<\/code> is only specified once (if at all) and in the<br \/>\n    <code>&lt;head&gt;<\/code> of the page.\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Check that <code>rel=canonical<\/code> points to an existent URL with good content (that is, not<br \/>\n    a <code>404<\/code>, or worse, a <code>soft 404<\/code>).\n  <\/li>\n<li>\n    Avoid specifying <code>rel=canonical<\/code> from landing or category pages to featured articles<br \/>\n    as that will make the featured article the preferred URL in search results.\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n  And, as always, please ask any questions in our<br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/community\/\" class=\"external-link\">Webmaster Help forum<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-author\">Written by Allan Scott, Software Engineer, Indexing Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday, April 08, 2013 It&#8217;s been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore). rel=&#8221;prev&#8221; and rel=&#8221;next&#8221; are no longer supported. Including a rel=canonical link in your webpage is a strong hint to search [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"menu_order":84197,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"ar_kb_kategori":[665],"ar_kb_etiket":[],"class_list":["post-24749","ar_kb","type-ar_kb","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ar_kb_kategori-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb\/24749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ar_kb"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb\/24749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ar_kb_kategori","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb_kategori?post=24749"},{"taxonomy":"ar_kb_etiket","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alienroad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ar_kb_etiket?post=24749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}