cross canonicalization with redirect
-
I'm working with a website that has turned one of its pages into its own website within the main website - mostly for the ease of customers, making it simpler to access that page using www.page.com rather than www.mainsite.com/about/page.
As a result, there are two urls for that page (the ones just mentioned), both pointing to the exact same page, but with different urls. Now, they have made it so www.mainsite.com/about/page permanently redirects to www.page.com. which I thought was a good call. However, what do I do about canonicalization? Is it good to point the canonicalization of www.page.com to www.mainsite.com/about/page so that the rankings and link equity are maintained in the main website? Or would the fact that the www.mainsite.com/about/page redirects to www.page.com mess that up?I hope this makes sense!
-
@Shrine-SEO-Gal said in cross canonicalization with redirect:
I'm working with a website that has turned one of its pages into its own website within the main website - mostly for the ease of customers, making it simpler to access that page using www.page.com rather than www.mainsite.com/about/page.
As a result, there are two urls for that page (the ones just mentioned), both pointing to the exact same page, but with different urls. Now, they have made it so www.mainsite.com/about/page permanently redirects to www.page.com. which I thought was a good call. However, what do I do about canonicalization? Is it good to point the canonicalization of www.page.com to www.mainsite.com/about/page so that the rankings and link equity are maintained in the main website? Or would the fact that the www.mainsite.com/about/page redirects to www.page.com mess that up?I hope this makes sense!
Yes, this setup makes sense, and you’re on the right track. Since you’re using a 301 redirect from
www.mainsite.com/about/pagetowww.page.com, the link equity and SEO value should automatically transfer to the newwww.page.comURL. In this case, you don’t need to point the canonical ofwww.page.comback towww.mainsite.com/about/page—that would create a confusing loop.Instead, set the canonical on
www.page.comto itself, so search engines recognize it as the primary URL. The 301 redirect fromwww.mainsite.com/about/pagewill already signal to search engines thatwww.page.comis the new, authoritative location, preserving link equity without needing cross-canonicalization. This approach is both clean and effective for SEO. -
I have liked this page of yours and your post is good, keep posting like this. Website
-
thanks you for information. jacketskingdom.com
-
@JefferyDavis Thank you so much! Yes, I figured most of that as I was mulling it over. But I had not thought of checking to monitor indexing, etc.
Thank you for the reminder! -
@Shrine-SEO-Gal In this situation, it's important to handle canonicalization carefully to ensure that search engines understand which URL you want to be recognized as the primary source of content, and to maintain your site's SEO value.
Here are some steps you can take:
Use the Correct Canonical Tag: On the new page, set the canonical tag to point to itself. This signals to search engines that this is the preferred version of the page.
Redirect the Old URL: Implement a 301 redirect from the old page to the new one. This indicates to search engines that the page has permanently moved.
Avoid Canonical Conflicts: Do not point the canonical tag on the new page back to the old one. This could create confusion and dilute link equity.
Monitor Performance: After implementing these changes, monitor your website’s performance in search engines using tools to track indexing and any potential issues.
Update Internal Links: Ensure that all internal links on the main site are updated to point to the new page to reinforce the new URL structure.
By following these steps, you can effectively manage the transition and help maintain your site's SEO value.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Redirecting homepage to subdirectory
Any issues with 301 redirecting a site's homepage to the English version subdirectory? Example: Original homepage: www.mysite.com New homepage: www.mysite.com/en/ The site is very old and very authoritative and trusted with lots of traffic.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
CNAME vs 301 redirect
Hi all, Recently I created a website for a new client and my next job is trying to get them higher in Google. I added them in OSE and noticed some strange backlinks. To my surprise the client has about 20 domain names. All automatically poiting to (showing) the same new mainsite now. www.maindomain.nl www.maindomain.be
Technical SEO | | Houdoe
www.maindomain.eu
www.maindomain.com
www.otherdomain.nl
www.otherdomain.com
... Some of these domains have backlinks too (but not so much). I suggested to 301 redirect them all to the main site. Just to avoid duplicate content. But now the webhoster comes into play: "It's a problem, client has only 1 hosting account, blablabla...". They told me they could CNAME the 20 domains to the main domain. Or A-record them to an IP address. This is too technical stuff for me. So my concrete questions are: Is it smart to do anything at all or am I just harming my client? The main site is ranking pretty well now. And some backlinks are from their copy sites (probably because everywhere the logo links to the full mainsite url). Does the CNAME or A-record solution has the same effect as a 301 redirect, from SEO perspective? Many thanks,
Hans0 -
301 redirect from Blogger
Hello, I have a client with a Wordpress network of blogs, each blog is owned by a different blogger. Many of them were migrated time ago from Blogger. I have seen that the way used to redirect them is a meta refresh, so no authority is being passed. I cannot find any reliable way of making a 301 from Blogger, There are some plugins, but I'm afraid of using them. Any of you have experience with this situation please? I have even thought about placing a global rel canonical before the meta refresh, but I think that here the problem is the meta refresh itself.... Thank you in advance
Technical SEO | | Juandbbam0 -
Do I need redirects for a .asp to a .htm?
We move to a new site and some of the pages were widgets.com/test.asp, do I need to redirect that to widgets.com/test.htm? It is the same url just the difference between .asp and .htm
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
IP redirects
My website, on a .com domain, displays a different language/content depending on the IP of the user. For example, if someone is browsing my web from Spain, it will show the spanish content, and so on. Does anyone has an idea on how will Google index my pages? Their servers being located in the US, I assume the bot will only crawl and index the english content. How can I tell the bots to do the same for the other languages/content? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Alemoto0 -
Canonicalization - Some advice needed :)
Hi guys, To be honest, it's a little bit embarrassing to throw out this question but it's one of the weakest points of knowledge at the moment for me. I've tried to get a grasp of canonical URLs and what it all means. From my understanding, it's informing Google which page to take into consideration when there's the possibility for duplicate content. Right? However, with the site I'm working on I'm not sure if it would be worth putting site-wide and the impact it would have. Site I'm working on - http://bit.ly/N7eew7 With the nature of the site, there would be a lot of duplicated content as there's the possibility that several properties listed could have a similar address due to being in the same building etc. From what I can see, no canonical URL was setup on the homepage. The other variations of the homepage URL are 301 redirecting to thee http:/www. version. Can someone explain it all to me in simple terms? Honestly believe that I'm getting more confused by the minute. Thanks guys for your patience 🙂
Technical SEO | | MarkScully1 -
Portfolio website: reciprocal backlinks and redirects
My company specializes in website design and development, and as such, the portfolio section on our website has lots of links to websites we've built. Generally, the way that we do this is that our portfolio sections links to URLs with a naming scheme as follows: http://ourcompany.com/client1 which is either a redirect to http://client1.com if the site is still up, or a version hosted on our website (http://ourcompany.com/client1) if the client is no longer hosting their site. In addition, most of our client sites contain a reciprocal link back to ourcompany.com, usually with the text "Website design and development by OurCompany". I have two questions about this arrangement: Might the reciprocal backlinks from the client sites be affecting the SEO results for ourcompany.com? I know that reciprocal backlinks can be occasionally problematic. If I do a search for "site:ourcompany.com", I'll get results for all of the client sites that we're hosting at http://ourcompany.com/client1, because I haven't excluded them in robots.txt. Of course, the content of these sites has little to do with that of our company, because we have a diverse array of clients and none of them do web design and development (which is the content focus of our site). Might this seemingly unrelated content be affecting our results? Should the client sites be excluded in robots.txt or via nofollow? Thanks very much!
Technical SEO | | fdepino0 -
Redirect links add seo value?
Does anyone know if urls on the 'Websites' part of a LinkedIn public profile create any SEO value (meaning, does page rank flow)? The links looks like this: <a href="/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Espeechpad%2Ecom%2Fpage%2Fspeech-to-text&urlhash=Xk3F" target="_blank" title="New window will open" name="overviewsite">speech to texta>
Technical SEO | | scanlin0