Duplicate content can be a major problem for businesses trying to optimize their website for search engine visibility. When two or more pages on a website contain the same content, the search engines may see this as an attempt to game the system and may penalize the site by reducing its ranking in the search results.
One of the best ways to avoid duplicate content is to use a canonical link tag. If you’re having issues with your canonical tags, never fear! This article will give you some tips on how to troubleshoot them. Keep reading to learn more!
What are canonical tags?
A canonical tag is an HTML element that helps webmasters avoid duplicate content issues. When using the canonical tag, webmasters can indicate to search engines which version of a URL is the “original” one. This helps ensure that a search engine indexes only a single version of a page rather than multiple versions resulting from duplicate content. The use of canonical tags can also help improve site performance and SEO rankings.
What are some common mistakes people make with canonicals?
There are a few common mistakes people make with canonical tags, which are described below:
- Not using them correctly – The canonical tag should be placed on the “original” version of the page, not all versions of the page. For example, if you have a product page that appears on different URLs (e.g., www.example.com/product and www.example.com/product?id=12), you would use the canonical tag on the www.example.com/product URL to indicate that this is the original version of the page.
- Canonicalizing pages with noindex or robots nofollow tags – If you add a canonical tag to a page that has a noindex or robots nofollow tag, it will tell search engines that this is not an original version of the page and it should not be included in search results pages.
- Canonicalizing paginated pages – Paginated pages (pages with numbers in their URLs) can cause duplicate content issues because they typically show up as separate pages in search engine results pages (SERPs). You can resolve this by using rel=”canonical” links on each paginated page to point to the “original” version of the page (the first paginated page).
Understanding these common mistakes can help you troubleshoot what is wrong with your canonical tags.
How do you troubleshoot canonical tag issues?
To troubleshoot canonical tag issues, you’ll need to first determine where the problem is occurring. There are three main places where problems can happen: within the HTML of the page, within the HTTP header, or within the robots.txt file. Once you’ve determined where the problem is happening, you can take steps to fix it.
If the problem is occurring within the HTML of the page, you’ll need to ensure that all of your canonical tags are correct and properly implemented. You can use a tool to check for any errors. If there are any errors, fix them and then re-test.
If the problem is occurring within the HTTP header, you’ll need to update your Canonical URL setting in your web server’s configuration file. This varies depending on which web server you’re using, so you’ll need to consult with your web server’s documentation for instructions on how to do this.
If the problem is occurring within the robots.txt file, you’ll need to update your robots exclusion protocol (REP) settings in order to allow Googlebot access to all of your pages, including those with canonical tags implemented incorrectly. To do this, add *.* following /canonical/tag/.
There are a few things to keep in mind when troubleshooting canonical tag issues. First, make sure the canonical tag is implemented correctly on both the source and destination pages. Then, check that the canonical tag is pointing to the correct page. Finally, make sure the canonical tag is not causing duplicate content issues.
If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to troubleshoot and fix any canonical tag issues.