What is a Canonical URL and should I use them. I run a Wordpress site called We Got This Covered. I honestly don't even know if I use them or not. Do I? Can someone check my site and if I dont have them should I and why?
I believe it is http://yoursite.com...Canonical url is the main url that you want the search engine to see, for example, www.yoursite.com or http://yoursite.com. Say, you want the search engine to see the latter. So, you will do a 303 redirect to direct all www.yoursite.com to http://yoursite.com. But I wouldnt worry about that. Google has pretty much developed a good algorithm to figure that out.
so I don't need to worry about it? I think it's when you add a # to the end of your link, kind of like the site screen rant does
Canonical URL point to duplicate content through Canonical URL you said to the spider to ignore duplicate content
@ OP, did you bother to check wiki before creating this thread? Just found some detailed & useful information for you here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonicalization Hope this helps
Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway? A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls: www.example.com example.com/ www.example.com/index.html example.com/home.asp But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes†a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set. A blog or a website can be accessed through http://www.example.com or http://example.com. You should always remember that a www and non-www of the same domain are treated as two different URLs by search engines. There are many factors that determine our position in search result pages, one of them is using “www†or “non www†in your domain Since Google considers these are two different URL’s, there are also chances of search engines considering them as having duplicate content & sharing link benefit problems Do I have a canonical issue? Having your pages / posts indexed as www & non-www is known as a canonical issue. To know if your site has a canonical issue perform a site: search in Google site:http://example.com The above search will find all pages indexed under the domain including the www and non-www versions. If you have a look through what is indexed, if you find both www and non-www pages indexed you have a canonical problem. Which is the most preferred one? There is no such preference from search engines. It’s up to you to decide on one version, “www†or “non www†and be consistent with it with during your linking building efforts. So it’s always a good practice to select one among www or non www for your site and redirect the unused to the preferred one. Also, the no. of incoming links will also differ if you keep two versions of your site which ultimately affects the page rank, and the link juices flowing in from all those links get split between the two URLs. I have already built up backlinks to both versions “www†& “non www� Not to worry. You can choose your preference and set up a 301 Permanent Redirect. Once the redirect is in place the link juice will be passed to your preferred version and your visitors will also be directed to your preferred version when the unused URL is keyed in. The major search engines have the ability to determine that www and non-www versions are the same and combine the results (passing all the benefit to just one version). Occasionally, they fail to do so – which is when you need to set up a 301 permanent redirect.
so I'm still confused though, do I physically have to do anything to my site or is it already set up properly with canonicals and all? my site is wegotthiscovered.com
The search engine friendly URL that you want the search engines to treat as authoritative. A canonical URL is the URL that you want visitors to see.
he search engine friendly URL that you want the search engines to treat as authoritative. In other words, a canonical URL is the URL that you want visitors to see. The tag is part of the HTML header on a web page, the same section you'd find the Title attribute and Meta Description tag. In fact, this tag isn't new, but like nofollow, simply uses a new rel parameter. For example: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.anc.org/blog" /> www.example.com example.com www.example.com/index.html example.com/home.asp
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/ I guess this post by Matt Cutts would be helpful.
Simply put, a canonical URL is the one you wish visitors to see, it should be the simplest & most signicant, authorative form of the URL that you want seen.
Canonical URL: the search engine friendly URL that you want the search engines to treat as authoritative. In other words, a canonical URL is the URL that you want visitors to see.