The Link Canonical Tag: Good Guy or Bad Guy? by Adam Audette - SMX Advanced 2009

The Link Canonical Tag Adam Audette SEO with Many Hats

There’s a new gun in town!

(Just don’t wear it like Joe)

I’m the SEO with many hats (and they’re all white)

Brief Background

2 nd generation search marketer

John Audette, Outrider

President at AudetteMedia, Inc

Search Marketing Boutique

Oversee SEO at Zappos

With Zappos since 2001

Lead SEO Strategy for International Agency

Key partnership with AudetteMedia

“ That new link canonical guy looks cool!”

“ What’s the latest on Sphinn...?”

“ Just a sec, I gotta tweet that lunch we had....”

The Link Canonical Tag

It’s a tad confusing

For duplicate content, but...

...can be used in other creative ways

It has potential to break your site

The Good

Darn easy to implement

Appears to work

Allegedly passes anchor text and PR

Useful for faceted / sorted URLs

Can be good for temporary fixes

The Bad

Like a ‘poor man’s’ 301

Powerful + New/Untested + Easy to implement = Potential for FAIL

Not a replacement for fundamental URL structure

Doesn’t actually solve duplicate content

May be better to redirect

Watch out for “Mr Bad Guy”

“ The name’s LC...”

“ Pa, LC’s got me all tied up!”

“ It says here comment tags work good for SEO!”

“ Aw crap, printing out twitter feeds just don’t work!!”

Ideas & Examples from the Field

ZFC URL handler

Does fancy stuff with URLs

But duplicate content will still happen

And doesn’t address certain scenarios

Possibly deploying link canonical:

Plurals

Faceted / sorted URLs

Sub-domains

Possible link canonical usage:

Artist pages (PageRank split)

Main Category Pages

Temporary solutions

125 backlinks 120 backlinks

Possible deployment:

Sub-domains

reviews.motosport.com

answers.motosport.com

motocross.motosport.com

etc...

Google can use it:

http://directory.google.com/alpha/Top/Shopping/Clothing/Footwear/

http://directory.google.com/Top/Shopping/Clothing/Footwear/

http://www.google.com/alpha/Top/Shopping/Clothing/Footwear/

http://www.google.com/Top/Shopping/Clothing/Footwear/

What if…

What if a redesign was being deployed in ~6 months?

What if you needed some quick-wins?

What if URLs were going to change?

“ Try it... if ya got the guts!”

www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes = 200 Link canonical target = www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes (sort of a 301) 200 404 301 302 The search result updates

www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes = 404 Link canonical target = www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes (sort of a 301) 200 404 301 302 Probably a bad idea

www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes = 301 Link canonical target = www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes (sort of a 301) 200 - finished 404 - bad idea 301 302 Canonical target 301 redirects back to parent URL Does this create a loop? www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref

www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes = 302 Link canonical target = www.mydomain.com/ride-bikes (sort of a 301) 200 - best case 404 - bad idea 301 - loop? 302 Canonical target 302 redirects back to parent URL Search result should remain www.mydomain.com/catID/detail.asp?ID=42&nav=sidebar %22_ref

“ Rescue me from LC’s trap!”

“ Let’s redirect the old way from now on, Joe.”

Thank you! Adam Audette @audette www.audettemedia.com