{"id":255,"date":"2013-04-08T22:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T22:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/?guid=bf2c05cbcad1ef8794e3986c746b4dbe"},"modified":"2014-01-19T23:41:13","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T23:41:13","slug":"5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical\/","title":{"rendered":"5 common mistakes with rel=canonical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Webmaster Stage: Intermediate to Advanced<\/b><\/br><\/br>  Together with a <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?answer=139394\">rel=canonical link<\/a> in your webpage is a strong hint to search engines like google and yahoo your about most well-liked model to index amongst <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?answer=139066\">replica pages on the net<\/a>. It\u2019s supported by a couple of search engines like google and yahoo, together with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ysearchblog.com\/2009\/02\/12\/fighting-duplication-adding-more-arrows-to-your-quiver\/\">Yahoo!<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/community\/site_blogs\/b\/webmaster\/archive\/2009\/02\/12\/partnering-to-help-solve-duplicate-content-issues.aspx\">Bing<\/a>, and Google. The rel=canonical hyperlink consolidates indexing houses from the duplicates, like their one-way links, as well as specifies which URL you\u2019d like displayed in search results. However, rel=canonical is usually a bit difficult as a result of it\u2019s no longer very obvious when there\u2019s a misconfiguration.<\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-IEvC_iVRAC8\/UWJDccsxYcI\/AAAAAAAA-VU\/ciLc5P7lj2M\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.09.17+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-IEvC_iVRAC8\/UWJDccsxYcI\/AAAAAAAA-VU\/ciLc5P7lj2M\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.09.17+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>Whereas the webmaster sees the \u201cpurple velvet\u201d page on the left in their browser, serps discover on the webmaster\u2019s unintended \u201cblue velvet\u201d rel=canonical on the proper.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> We recommend the following easiest practices for the usage of rel=canonical:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A big portion of the duplicate web page\u2019s content will have to be existing on the canonical version.<\/li>\n<blockquote><p>One test is to imagine you don\u2019t have in mind the language of the content material\u2014in case you placed the reproduction facet-by using-facet with the canonical, does an awfully large percentage of the words of the duplicate web page seem on the canonical page? If you want to speak the language to take into account that the pages are equivalent; as an example, if they\u2019re best topically equivalent however no longer extraordinarily close in precise phrases, the canonical designation might be disregarded by way of engines like google.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<li>Double-check that your rel=canonical target exists (it\u2019s no longer an error or \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?&amp;answer=181708\">delicate 404<\/a>\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Check the rel=canonical goal doesn\u2019t incorporate a noindex robots meta tag<\/li>\n<li>Remember to\u2019d want the rel=canonical URL to be displayed in search results (reasonably than the duplicate URL)<\/li>\n<li>Embrace the rel=canonical hyperlink in both the &lt;head&gt; of the page or the HTTP header<\/li>\n<li>Specify no multiple rel=canonical for a web page. When multiple is distinctive, all rel=canonicals might be unnoticed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Mistake 1: rel=canonical to the primary page of a paginated collection<\/b> <\/br> <\/br> Think about that you have an editorial that spans a few pages:  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>instance.com\/article?story=cupcake-information&amp;web page=1<\/li>\n<li>example.com\/article?story=cupcake-information&amp;page=2<\/li>\n<li>and so on<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Specifying a rel=canonical from page 2 (or any later web page) to web page 1 isn&#8217;t right use of rel=canonical, as these will not be reproduction pages. The usage of rel=canonical in this instance would consequence within the content on pages 2 and beyond no longer being listed in any respect. <\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W-Ltdir2fgM\/UWJEb1k9EdI\/AAAAAAAA-Vk\/JrXzAscPY2Q\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.15.04+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W-Ltdir2fgM\/UWJEb1k9EdI\/AAAAAAAA-Vk\/JrXzAscPY2Q\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.15.04+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>Good content material (e.g., \u201ccookies are superior nutrition\u201d and \u201cto vegetables\u201d) is lost when specifying rel=canonical from element pages to the first page of a series.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br>  In instances of <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?&amp;answer=1663744\">paginated content material<\/a>, we recommend both a <a href=\"http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\/2011\/09\/view-all-in-search-results.html\">rel=canonical from element pages to a single-page version of the article<\/a>, or to make use of <a href=\"http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\/2011\/09\/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html\">rel=\u201dprev\u201d and rel=\u201dnext\u201d pagination markup<\/a>.<\/br><\/br>  <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-RxuUokKe2VQ\/UWJE7lpXq4I\/AAAAAAAA-Vs\/l5gwzCuL4ds\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.16.56+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-RxuUokKe2VQ\/UWJE7lpXq4I\/AAAAAAAA-Vs\/l5gwzCuL4ds\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.16.56+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>rel=canonical from part pages to the view-all page<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br>  <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-lNbf-gRVKjU\/UWJN0JpjljI\/AAAAAAAA-V8\/yYUL_tbjNgY\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.55.06+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-lNbf-gRVKjU\/UWJN0JpjljI\/AAAAAAAA-V8\/yYUL_tbjNgY\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.55.06+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>If rel=canonical to a view-all page isn\u2019t certain, paginated content material can use rel=\u201dprev\u201d and rel=\u201dnext\u201d markup.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> <b>Mistake 2: Absolute URLs mistakenly written as relative URLs<\/b> <\/br> <\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zg01sTlueQw\/UWJOUHdiBeI\/AAAAAAAA-WE\/M0y0ZprBdyg\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.57.07+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zg01sTlueQw\/UWJOUHdiBeI\/AAAAAAAA-WE\/M0y0ZprBdyg\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.57.07+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/br> The &lt;link&gt; tag, like many HTML tags, accepts both relative and absolute URLs. Relative URLs embrace a route \u201crelative\u201d to the present page. For instance, \u201cimages\/cupcake.png\u201d means \u201cfrom the present listing go to the \u201cpictures\u201d subdirectory, then to cupcake.png.\u201d Absolute URLs specify the whole course\u2014including the scheme like http:\/\/.<\/br><\/br>  Specifying &lt;link rel=canonical href=\u201cinstance.com\/cupcake.html\u201d \/&gt; (a relative URL because there\u2019s no \u201chttp:\/\/\u201d) implies that the specified canonical URL is http:\/\/<b>instance.com\/example.com<\/b>\/cupcake.html despite the fact that that is almost under no circumstances what used to be meant. In these circumstances, our algorithms may ignore the required rel=canonical. In a roundabout way which means no matter you had hoped to accomplish with this rel=canonical will not come to fruition. <\/br><\/br> <b>Mistake three: Unintended or multiple declarations of rel=canonical<\/b> <\/br><\/br> Occasionally, we see rel=canonical designations that we believe are accidental. In very rare cases we see easy typos, but more regularly a busy webmaster copies a web page template without thinking to alter the goal of the rel=canonical. Now the website proprietor\u2019s pages specify a rel=canonical to the template author\u2019s site. <\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-oM8L2Fj91T4\/UWJO9FqLKjI\/AAAAAAAA-WM\/QkuqAfpdSPA\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.00.01+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-oM8L2Fj91T4\/UWJO9FqLKjI\/AAAAAAAA-WM\/QkuqAfpdSPA\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.00.01+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>In the event you use a template, test that you didn\u2019t also copy the rel=canonical specification.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> Every other problem is when pages include multiple rel=canonical links to different URLs. This occurs continuously along with SEO plugins that frequently insert a default rel=canonical link, possibly unbeknownst to the webmaster who installed the plugin. In instances of multiple declarations of rel=canonical, Google will likely ignore all the rel=canonical hints. Any merit that a legitimate rel=canonical might have supplied might be misplaced. <\/br> <\/br> In both all these circumstances, double-checking the web page\u2019s source code will lend a hand proper the difficulty. Remember to take a look at your entire &lt;head&gt; part because the rel=canonical hyperlinks may be unfold aside. <\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8Lnzh6tMIbY\/UWJPPrFqsrI\/AAAAAAAA-WU\/fDQf8AuH9Y0\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.01.26+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8Lnzh6tMIbY\/UWJPPrFqsrI\/AAAAAAAA-WU\/fDQf8AuH9Y0\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.01.26+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>Check the behavior of plugins through taking a look at the page\u2019s supply code.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> <b>Mistake four: Category or landing page specifies rel=canonical to a featured article<\/b><\/br><\/br> Let\u2019s say you run a web site about truffles. Your dessert web page has useful class pages like \u201cpastry\u201d and \u201cgelato.\u201d Every day the category pages feature a novel article. For instance, your pastry landing page might function \u201ccrimson velvet cupcakes.\u201d Since the \u201cpastry\u201d category page has virtually all of the similar content as the \u201cpurple velvet cupcake\u201d web page, you add a rel=canonical from the category page to the featured individual article. <\/br><\/br> If we had been to just accept this rel=canonical, then your pastry category web page would not appear in search results. That\u2019s since the rel=canonical indicators that you would prefer serps show the canonical URL instead of the replica. Alternatively, if you need customers so as to in finding both the category page and featured article, it\u2019s best to only have a self-referential rel=canonical on the class web page, or none at all. <\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tGiujE06K8g\/UWJPtK2fBXI\/AAAAAAAA-Wc\/krwWyhTfJ9Q\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.03.20+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tGiujE06K8g\/UWJPtK2fBXI\/AAAAAAAA-Wc\/krwWyhTfJ9Q\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.03.20+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>Remember the fact that the canonical designation also implies the most popular show URL. Keep away from including a rel=canonical from a category or landing web page to a featured article.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> <b>Mistake 5: rel=canonical in the &lt;physique&gt;<\/b> <\/br><\/br> The rel=canonical hyperlink tag should only appear in the &lt;head&gt; of an HTML document. Additionally, to steer clear of HTML parsing issues, it\u2019s just right to include the rel=canonical as early as conceivable within the &lt;head&gt;. Once we stumble upon a rel=canonical designation in the &lt;body&gt;, it\u2019s disregarded. <\/br> <\/br> This is a straightforward mistake to correct. Simply double-test that your rel=canonical links are at all times in the &lt;head&gt; of your page, and as early as that you can imagine if you can.<\/br><\/br> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SOLqBMty7Vo\/UWJQVru5WII\/AAAAAAAA-Wk\/ruH7Jz8k9jU\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.05.39+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SOLqBMty7Vo\/UWJQVru5WII\/AAAAAAAA-Wk\/ruH7Jz8k9jU\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.05.39+PM.png\" \/><\/a><\/br> <i>rel=canonical designations within the &lt;head&gt; are processed, not the &lt;body&gt;.<\/i><\/div>\n<p><\/br> <b>Conclusion<\/b> <\/br> <\/br> To create valuable rel=canonical designations: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Test that lots of the major text content of a duplicate page additionally seems in the canonical page.<\/li>\n<li>Test that rel=canonical is simplest specific once (if in any respect) and within the &lt;head&gt; of the page.<\/li>\n<li>Test that rel=canonical factors to an existent URL with excellent content (i.e., no longer a 404, or worse, a comfortable 404).<\/li>\n<li>Steer clear of specifying rel=canonical from landing or category pages to featured articles as so as to make the featured article the preferred URL in search results.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, as at all times, please ask any questions in our <a href=\"http:\/\/productforums.google.com\/forum\/#!forum\/webmasters\">Webmaster Help forum<\/a>. <\/br><\/br> <span class=\"byline-author\">Written with the aid of Allan Scott, Software Engineer, Indexing Group<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/blogspot\/amDG?a=p8xWLqRnYFc:mdW9uwVsvIY:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/blogspot\/amDG?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/blogspot\/amDG\/~4\/p8xWLqRnYFc\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><b>Webmaster Level: Intermediate to Advanced<\/b>  Including a <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?answer=139394\">rel=canonical link<\/a> in your webpage is a strong hint to search engines your about preferred version to index among <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?answer=139066\">duplicate pages on the web<\/a>. It&rsquo;s supported by several search engines, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ysearchblog.com\/2009\/02\/12\/fighting-duplication-adding-more-arrows-to-your-quiver\/\">Yahoo!<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bing.com\/community\/site_blogs\/b\/webmaster\/archive\/2009\/02\/12\/partnering-to-help-solve-duplicate-content-issues.aspx\">Bing<\/a>, and Google. The rel=canonical link consolidates indexing properties from the duplicates, like their inbound links, as well as specifies which URL you&rsquo;d like displayed in search results. However, rel=canonical can be a bit tricky because it&rsquo;s not very obvious when there&rsquo;s a misconfiguration. <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-IEvC_iVRAC8\/UWJDccsxYcI\/AAAAAAAA-VU\/ciLc5P7lj2M\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.09.17+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-IEvC_iVRAC8\/UWJDccsxYcI\/AAAAAAAA-VU\/ciLc5P7lj2M\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.09.17+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>While the webmaster sees the &ldquo;red velvet&rdquo; page on the left in their browser, search engines notice on the webmaster&rsquo;s unintended &ldquo;blue velvet&rdquo; rel=canonical on the right.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> We recommend the following best practices for using rel=canonical:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A large portion of the duplicate page&rsquo;s content should be present on the canonical version.<\/li>\n<blockquote><p>One test is to imagine you don&rsquo;t understand the language of the content&mdash;if you placed the duplicate side-by-side with the canonical, does a very large percentage of the words of the duplicate page appear on the canonical page? If you need to speak the language to understand that the pages are similar; for example, if they&rsquo;re only topically similar but not extremely close in exact words, the canonical designation might be disregarded by search engines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<li>Double-check that your rel=canonical target exists (it&rsquo;s not an error or &ldquo;<a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?&amp;answer=181708\">soft 404<\/a>&rdquo;)<\/li>\n<li>Verify the rel=canonical target doesn&rsquo;t contain a noindex robots meta tag<\/li>\n<li>Make sure you&rsquo;d prefer the rel=canonical URL to be displayed in search results (rather than the duplicate URL)<\/li>\n<li>Include the rel=canonical link in either the &lt;head&gt; of the page or the HTTP header<\/li>\n<li>Specify no more than one rel=canonical for a page. When more than one is specified, all rel=canonicals will be ignored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Mistake 1: rel=canonical to the first page of a paginated series<\/b>   Imagine that you have an article that spans several pages:  <\/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>Specifying a rel=canonical from page 2 (or any later page) to page 1 is not correct use of rel=canonical, as these are not duplicate pages. Using rel=canonical in this instance would result in the content on pages 2 and beyond not being indexed at all.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W-Ltdir2fgM\/UWJEb1k9EdI\/AAAAAAAA-Vk\/JrXzAscPY2Q\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.15.04+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W-Ltdir2fgM\/UWJEb1k9EdI\/AAAAAAAA-Vk\/JrXzAscPY2Q\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.15.04+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>Good content (e.g., &ldquo;cookies are superior nutrition&rdquo; and &ldquo;to vegetables&rdquo;) is lost when specifying rel=canonical from component pages to the first page of a series.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p>  In cases of <a href=\"http:\/\/support.google.com\/webmasters\/bin\/answer.py?&amp;answer=1663744\">paginated content<\/a>, we recommend either a <a href=\"http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\/2011\/09\/view-all-in-search-results.html\">rel=canonical from component pages to a single-page version of the article<\/a>, or to use <a href=\"http:\/\/googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com\/2011\/09\/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html\">rel=&rdquo;prev&rdquo; and rel=&rdquo;next&rdquo; pagination markup<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-RxuUokKe2VQ\/UWJE7lpXq4I\/AAAAAAAA-Vs\/l5gwzCuL4ds\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.16.56+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-RxuUokKe2VQ\/UWJE7lpXq4I\/AAAAAAAA-Vs\/l5gwzCuL4ds\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.16.56+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>rel=canonical from component pages to the view-all page<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-lNbf-gRVKjU\/UWJN0JpjljI\/AAAAAAAA-V8\/yYUL_tbjNgY\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.55.06+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-lNbf-gRVKjU\/UWJN0JpjljI\/AAAAAAAA-V8\/yYUL_tbjNgY\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.55.06+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>If rel=canonical to a view-all page isn&rsquo;t designated, paginated content can use rel=&rdquo;prev&rdquo; and rel=&rdquo;next&rdquo; markup.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> <b>Mistake 2: Absolute URLs mistakenly written as relative URLs<\/b>   <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zg01sTlueQw\/UWJOUHdiBeI\/AAAAAAAA-WE\/M0y0ZprBdyg\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.57.07+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zg01sTlueQw\/UWJOUHdiBeI\/AAAAAAAA-WE\/M0y0ZprBdyg\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+9.57.07+PM.png\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p> The &lt;link&gt; tag, like many HTML tags, accepts both relative and absolute URLs. Relative URLs include a path &ldquo;relative&rdquo; to the current page. For example, &ldquo;images\/cupcake.png&rdquo; means &ldquo;from the current directory go to the &ldquo;images&rdquo; subdirectory, then to cupcake.png.&rdquo; Absolute URLs specify the full path&mdash;including the scheme like http:\/\/.  Specifying &lt;link rel=canonical href=&ldquo;example.com\/cupcake.html&rdquo; \/&gt; (a relative URL since there&rsquo;s no &ldquo;http:\/\/&rdquo;) implies that the desired canonical URL is http:\/\/<b>example.com\/example.com<\/b>\/cupcake.html even though that is almost certainly not what was intended. In these cases, our algorithms may ignore the specified rel=canonical. Ultimately this means that whatever you had hoped to accomplish with this rel=canonical will not come to fruition.  <b>Mistake 3: Unintended or multiple declarations of rel=canonical<\/b>  Occasionally, we see rel=canonical designations that we believe are unintentional. In very rare circumstances we see simple typos, but more commonly a busy webmaster copies a page template without thinking to change the target of the rel=canonical. Now the site owner&rsquo;s pages specify a rel=canonical to the template author&rsquo;s site.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-oM8L2Fj91T4\/UWJO9FqLKjI\/AAAAAAAA-WM\/QkuqAfpdSPA\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.00.01+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-oM8L2Fj91T4\/UWJO9FqLKjI\/AAAAAAAA-WM\/QkuqAfpdSPA\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.00.01+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>If you use a template, check that you didn&rsquo;t also copy the rel=canonical specification.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> Another issue is when pages include multiple rel=canonical links to different URLs. This happens frequently in conjunction with SEO plugins that often insert a default rel=canonical link, possibly unbeknownst to the webmaster who installed the plugin. In cases of multiple declarations of rel=canonical, Google will likely ignore all the rel=canonical hints. Any benefit that a legitimate rel=canonical might have offered will be lost.   In both these types of cases, double-checking the page&rsquo;s source code will help correct the issue. Be sure to check the entire &lt;head&gt; section as the rel=canonical links may be spread apart.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8Lnzh6tMIbY\/UWJPPrFqsrI\/AAAAAAAA-WU\/fDQf8AuH9Y0\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.01.26+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8Lnzh6tMIbY\/UWJPPrFqsrI\/AAAAAAAA-WU\/fDQf8AuH9Y0\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.01.26+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>Check the behavior of plugins by looking at the page&rsquo;s source code.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> <b>Mistake 4: Category or landing page specifies rel=canonical to a featured article<\/b> Let&rsquo;s say you run a site about desserts. Your dessert site has useful category pages like &ldquo;pastry&rdquo; and &ldquo;gelato.&rdquo; Each day the category pages feature a unique article. For instance, your pastry landing page might feature &ldquo;red velvet cupcakes.&rdquo; Because the &ldquo;pastry&rdquo; category page has nearly all the same content as the &ldquo;red velvet cupcake&rdquo; page, you add a rel=canonical from the category page to the featured individual article.  If we were to accept this rel=canonical, then your pastry category page would not appear in search results. That&rsquo;s because the rel=canonical signals that you would prefer search engines display the canonical URL in place of the duplicate. However, if you want users to be able to find both the category page and featured article, it&rsquo;s best to only have a self-referential rel=canonical on the category page, or none at all.  <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tGiujE06K8g\/UWJPtK2fBXI\/AAAAAAAA-Wc\/krwWyhTfJ9Q\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.03.20+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-tGiujE06K8g\/UWJPtK2fBXI\/AAAAAAAA-Wc\/krwWyhTfJ9Q\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.03.20+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>Remember that the canonical designation also implies the preferred display URL. Avoid adding a rel=canonical from a category or landing page to a featured article.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> <b>Mistake 5: rel=canonical in the &lt;body&gt;<\/b>  The rel=canonical link tag should only appear in the &lt;head&gt; of an HTML document. Additionally, to avoid HTML parsing issues, it&rsquo;s good to include the rel=canonical as early as possible in the &lt;head&gt;. When we encounter a rel=canonical designation in the &lt;body&gt;, it&rsquo;s disregarded.   This is an easy mistake to correct. Simply double-check that your rel=canonical links are always in the &lt;head&gt; of your page, and as early as possible if you can. <\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SOLqBMty7Vo\/UWJQVru5WII\/AAAAAAAA-Wk\/ruH7Jz8k9jU\/s1600\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.05.39+PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-SOLqBMty7Vo\/UWJQVru5WII\/AAAAAAAA-Wk\/ruH7Jz8k9jU\/s320\/Screen+Shot+2013-04-07+at+10.05.39+PM.png\"><\/a> <i>rel=canonical designations in the &lt;head&gt; are processed, not the &lt;body&gt;.<\/i>\n<\/div>\n<p> <b>Conclusion<\/b>   To create valuable rel=canonical designations: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Verify that most of the main text content of a duplicate page also appears in the canonical page.<\/li>\n<li>Check that rel=canonical is only specified once (if at all) and in the &lt;head&gt; of the page.<\/li>\n<li>Check that rel=canonical points to an existent URL with good content (i.e., not a 404, or worse, a soft 404).<\/li>\n<li>Avoid specifying rel=canonical from landing or category pages to featured articles as that will make the featured article the preferred URL in search results.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, as always, please ask any questions in our <a href=\"http:\/\/productforums.google.com\/forum\/#!forum\/webmasters\">Webmaster Help forum<\/a>.  <span>Written by Allan Scott, Software Engineer, Indexing Team<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/blogspot\/amDG?a=p8xWLqRnYFc:mdW9uwVsvIY:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/blogspot\/amDG?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/blogspot\/amDG\/~4\/p8xWLqRnYFc\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,62,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advanced","category-crawling-and-indexing","category-intermediate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urlrate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}