SEO: Canonical Tag Not What I’d Hoped

16 February 2009

Well, there are no free passes are there? I mean, yesterday (or at least I first heard of it yesterday), the major search engines came up with this cool link tag, called a “canonical tag,” which tells the spiders not to worry about duplicate content and points them to the proper page, or the canonical, where the original content sits, right?

I thought, Wow! That will solve a lot of problems. You just add this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

to the <head> section of your page and it tells the search engine what the preferred URL is. Here’s what Google said:

“Now, you can simply add this
tag to specify your preferred version:

inside the section of the duplicate content URLs:

http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&category=gummy-candy

http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&trackingid=1234&sessionid=5678

and Google will understand that the duplicates all refer to the canonical URL: http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well.”

(Read the full article at: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html)

So before I got too excited about the possibility, I found that this tag only applies in connection with dupe content on the same website. Oh, sure. They couldn’t possibly make it easy for us original content providers, now could they?

I mean, think about how that works. You write an article and put it into a directory. Lots of folks post it to their sites, newsletters, what have you. Does your original article get the credit? Maybe, maybe not. I’d love for there to be a way that I could tag my content as original, wouldn’t you? But I have no clue how they could make it happen. Anyone could tag a piece of content, original or not. Still, would be nice to be able to brand your work, eh?

So, this canonical tag is good for what it does, but it only applies to dupe content within a single website. If you’re an e-commerce site, it’s quite probable that you have duplicate content on your site, so this new tag will be a good thing for you. All of the search engines are supposed to recognize it.

For the rest of us… There may be applications, but it’s not as cool as I had hoped. Oh, I dared to dream, anyway.

2 Comments
 | Posted by Pat Marcello | Categories: Internet Marketing Information | Tagged: , , , , |

Dupe Content: What’s the Big Deal?

8 April 2008

Duplicate content has been the bane of search engines for quite some time. Why? Because search engines simply don’t want to return 10 results and have it all be the same article, video, etc. Spiders love fresh meat, and if they think yours is slightly overdone, you will have issues.

Don’t get me wrong…

You won’t pay a penalty in most cases, unless the dupe content is on your own site. Then, the heavy hands of the Google ghod will pound you into SERP (search engine results page) oblivion.

I have concrete proof of this.

I have a client with a big membership site. It’s in constant need of content, and I was providing it for the blog. The person in charge of the site decided that he could use the same content on the front page, and WHAM! The site dropped from #3 to #602 the moment the spiders found it.

Here’s the proof that dupe content was the problem: When I removed the duplicate items, we shot right back to #3 within a day or two.

However, most often marketers use dupe content in article directories, or they use the same content on their blogs as is on their website. Though this won’t raise a penalty, it won’t help you, either. Only ONE site will get credit for that content (at least at Google) and it may not be yours, even though you originated it.

Fresh content is best.

If you can’t write two articles, write one and then, rewrite it completely, making it fresh and new again. It’s a lot of work, but hey… If you’re in this to win, you don’t want to waste time sending out content that won’t win you any laurel leaves, either, right? Take the time to create quality content, put it out there, and watch to see what happens. You’ll should be happily surprised.

1 Comment
 | Posted by Pat Marcello | Categories: SEO Information | Tagged: , , , , |

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