How do we go about resolving a Canonical issue with a website? Please give me a step wise solution. What problems can canonical issues cause? Share some insights and suggestions from your experience. Thanks!
This is not an issue anymore for Google, but if you want faster results... redirect: www > non www = htaccess index.xxx > domain url = htaccess duplicate content (complete folder content) = exclusion via robots.txt single pages = canonical tag
I just look at duplicate title pages on my site reported on Google webmaster tools. If I can change it manually I will change the titles/description, otherwise I'd cannoniform all of them into a generic page, being a lazy person that I am.
Take a look at Matt Cutts blogs about canocial urls at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/ Its really simple and can stop your website getting penalised
This may or may not be true. Although Google are still advising webmasters to use redirects to avoid canonicalisation so I doubt your point is completely valid. Proper use of redirects (from www to non-www or vice versa), making sure that content is only available at one URL (location) etc. are all duplicate content issues.
This is not exactly true. Matt Cutts and others at Google will tell you they are "pretty good" at figuring out which is the canonical version of your URL. But their logic is not perfect. And even if Google could figure out the canonical URL 100% of the time, it would be dumb to ignore the problem. Google is not the only engine on the planet and the other search engines will still see it as a problem. By allowing multiple versions of URLs for the same page to appear on your site, you perpetuate the problem. Fix it once and for all so that when someone comes to your site, finds a page they want to link to from their site, and they copy your URL from their browser... they ALWAYS get the canonical URL. Canonicalization issues lead to split page rank and duplicate content issues. Both of which are a problem. The BEST way to correct canonical issues is to use 301 redirects... PERIOD. All major search engines (pretty much every search engine on the planet) will recommend this. Don't depend on the Google Webmaster Tools setting because it ONLY fixes the www vs. non-www problem for Google. It doesn't fix problems w/ trailing slash vs. no trailing slash. Doesn't fix default document name (like index.html) or no default document. Similarly, the link rel="canonical" element ONLY works at Google. While Yahoo! and Microsoft "said" they were going to support it when it was first announced, only Google has actually implemented support for it. This is a decent post about URL canonicalization.
canonical issues will create traffic and back links change in your www and non-www url. so you need to redirect non-www url into www url by 404 redirection.
Following are some ways to handle canonical issues: 1) Use your preferred domain through out your site for linking purposes, so that Google get the idea about your preferred domain. 2) Use 302 redirect from non - www to www. Note: Don't use URL Removal tool to remove either of www or non www version , it will remove your entire domain from google index for at least 6 months.
You are right man, I just wanted to say yes they can handle it without webmaster's "help" and yes I have seen - it's better to help otherwise they need ages to sort it on their own. It seems like the CMS you use makes a difference. I never had dup issues with wordpress but clients using Joomla are consulting me constantly when they add new content. The reason is probably a crappy database setup and system configuration.