16Feb2009

Avoid Duplicate Content with the Canonical URL Link Tag

Just came across a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog about their support of the new canonical link tag.

This tag is also recognized by Yahoo! and Microsoft.

The canonical link tag tells the search engine what the preferred URL for a page should be. It goes in the and looks like this:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://mysite.com/page.html" />

This is extremely useful for sites that can have multiple versions of a page thanks to variables such as tracking parameters or session IDs. Another benefit is that PageRank is passed to the canonical URL.

To understand more about the implications of this new tag it's worth reading through the comments to the post and in particular Google's response to them.

This definitely sounds like something I should add to my 12 essential web site building blocks list.

[via Website Magazine]

Posted on: February 16, 2009 | 13 Comments

13 Comments Posted

Interesting to know they support it. Some clients will be pleased :-). Thanks!

1. Posted by Patrick on February 16, 2009

For more information on this topic, check out the canonical URL blog post on SEOmoz.

2. Posted by Christian Watson on February 18, 2009

Very interesting. It will be useful on many dynamic sites and shopping carts.

3. Posted by SEO India on February 20, 2009

This is a very good thing search engines have done. now we can avoid getting penalized for duplicate content... hope it works and salves the problem.

4. Posted by Irshard booso - web design chicago on February 24, 2009

A great visual way to see how the triple dub versus the a URL without the triple dub (as a visual representation of which URL is getting more notice) in regards to canonicalization is to use SEOMoz's Trifecta tool. That might be one of their free tools, but if not, you'll need a PRO account.

5. Posted by custom web design firm on March 02, 2009

Interesting info, thanks for this. It will definitely be useful for blogs and ecommerce websites.

6. Posted by Web Design Brisbane on March 02, 2009

Hi All,
URL Canonicalization is a very useful thing for avoiding duplicate content and also fixing our website url with or without www.It will protect our websites from being penalized for having duplicate content as google comsider both of them as separate..
Web Development India

7. Posted by Sanjana Ahuja on March 06, 2009

Nice find, thanks for the info. This will certianly help the never ending battle to please the search engines!

8. Posted by Pasey Whitaker on March 09, 2009

Very cool. Didn't know about this. Normally we use ISAPI Rewrite to solve this problem as it ends up being a blanket solution for the website.

9. Posted by Tampa Web Design on March 18, 2009

Very Interesting. As others have mentioned I can see this being very useful on blogs, shopping sites and general dynamic content.

Thanks for the info.

10. Posted by Mathew Liles on March 27, 2009

I guess this article is very near to what i wrote onto my website which is http://www.addictivemedia.co.in/mistakes-by-webdesigners.html
....i think you guys should read that as well

11. Posted by website design company delhi on March 27, 2009

This clarifies a lot. Thanks.

12. Posted by BG design on April 06, 2009

Thanks for the info...Very useful for e-commerce sites.

13. Posted by Clarkston Web Design on April 07, 2009

Smiley Cat Weblog - Web design thoughts and commentary.

Avoid Duplicate Content with the Canonical URL Link Tag

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13 Comments Posted