Canonicalization for SEO BrightonSEO April 2023 Patrick Stox
1. Everything you really
need to know about
canonicalization
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Patrick Stox
Ahrefs
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Editor's Notes
Thanks Lily Ray for this screenshot. I don’t think most of the duplicates are nefarious. It’s mostly going to be technical issues that cause the duplicates
This process is sometimes referred to as canonicalization, standardization, or normalization.
There are only losses if things don’t consolidate properly.
There are only losses if things don’t consolidate properly.
There are only losses if things don’t consolidate properly.
The chosen version is called the canonical and signals like PageRank and anchor text will consolidate to that page.
Really they’re all getting a scoreShorter over longer is mostly to handle URLs with parameters
Really they’re all getting a scoreShorter over longer is mostly to handle URLs with parameters
Basically, the text becomes a number. This is the hash for my author page on the Ahrefs blog.
These are very similar pages they’ll have to deal with.
Scraped or syndicated content may help you!
Scraped or syndicated content may help you!
Scraped or syndicated content may help you!
Mobile versions of pages are the version indexed
A lot of these could have different content on the pages
A lot of these could have different content on the pages
A lot of these could have different content on the pages
A lot of these could have different content on the pages
A lot of these could have different content on the pages
I think the duplicate detection system kind of messes with app shell model sites.
This has been misconstrued over the years by SEOs
Crypto redirect = notification that you’ve moved
Crypto redirect = notification that you’ve moved
Consolidate backwards
This has too many huge implications for our industry
SEOs tend to call this the canonical tag
Google’s desktop bot just randomly chooses the HTTP page as the canonical sometimes
A lesson into why canonicalization is important
302, no canonical set
That’s Screaming Frog y’all
Sometimes the <head> section of a page will end before it should. This is usually caused by a tag in the <head> section not closed out properly. When that happens, a canonical tag may be put into the <body> section instead. If that happens, your canonical tag won’t be respected.
Sometimes the <head> section of a page will end before it should. This is usually caused by a tag in the <head> section not closed out properly. When that happens, a canonical tag may be put into the <body> section instead. If that happens, your canonical tag won’t be respected.