Canonical links

[ATrubka]

Hi, guys.

Is there a way to generate canonical links automatically for category and brand pages?
I can see the option to do so for products, but not for other pages.

[main@searchfit]

We support canonicals for products only.

Where are your duplicated category and manufacturer pages?
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www.searchfit.com
www.searchfit.us.com

[ATrubka]

It's just an SEO recommendation to always provide canonical URL. It's probably a minor thing though.

[main@searchfit]

Category and Manufacturer (Brand) pages do not have duplicated headers and content, so you should not worry about them.

However, we do support canonicals for products because a page could have some duplication when the product is of type link.
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www.searchfit.com
www.searchfit.us.com

[collegefanshop]

We'd like to make all Product Pages have a canonical link inserted. We see that it is available for "Product Link" type products, however, we'd like to have the ability for all regular products also.

Our Power Search results page is "nofollow noindex" which is great but the links to the product pages are query pages which we believe should include a canonial link to the originial product. A user can use these query pages as a link which then could result in a duplicate content problem. Can this be done automatically or detailed product template?

Please advise. Thank you.

SportsFlagShop

[main@searchfit]

Currently, there is no standard way to add canonical links in all detail product pages. We rely on search engines to honor the noindex and nofollow on the power search result pages.
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www.searchfit.com
www.searchfit.us.com

[collegefanshop]

Yes, we agree that noindex and nofollow is an ideal way to handle the powersearch "results pages". The problem is the product page URL's from these pages....they result in "query page" URL's with the same content as the originial URL product page.

As a workaround, what would be the proper way to insert this canonical link element with searchfit keywords into the product template?

Please advise.

Thanks.

SportsFlagShop

[gabe@searchfit]

Hello,

Actually, there is no need for a workaround because the nofollow tag tells Google not to follow links on that page:

"Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link."

I would encourage you to trust this tag. We have not seen any evidence that the product links on a search results page are being indexed, or cause any duplicate content issues. But, if you do see evidence of this please bring it to our attention. As with all things internet, things change and while we don't see any issues now, search engines will evolve, and we will need to respond.

Best,

[collegefanshop]

Gabe:

I agree with the effectiveness of the nofollow links on the search results pages but still don't want people copying and pasting the query string or including the query string in a blog, post, etc and potentially confusing search engines in what URL to index. Having a canonical will clean this up and give search engines the preferred URL to be indexed. I'm seeing more and more websites having all pages include a canonical in desktop and mobile versions.

What keyword can be used in desktop and mobile versions which references the originial URL of a page? We should be able to easily add this to our product and custom page templates.

Please advise. Thanks.

SportsFlagShop

[gabe@searchfit]

Hello,

We are discussing making enhancements to the current canonical tag feature, however, I cannot guarantee that any changes will be made.

For now, you can explore setting a url parameter that Google will use to ignore page content. However, this should be used with caution because if the parameter is too vague some pages may unintentionally be skipped.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080550

Thanks,