Adding rel=”canonical” to your website can make the difference between you appearing on page 1 of google or not appearing until page 12. It sounds too simple doesn’t it? But it’s a little known fact that a lot of blogs, websites and ecommerce sites are ignorant to.
First of all let’s take a look at the word canonical. This word is simply the definition of what is a preferred page from a group of pages, which contain very similar content. The canonical “tag” simply tells google which page should be taken as priority when more than one page contains such similar content.
The canonical link element was introduced by google back in 2009 as a way of working with their existing algorithm. This algorithm used a series of complex systems to determine which pages were most relevant, however with the canonical link element, page owners now have the power to decide rather than the decision being taken out of their hands by google and other search engines.
For example, on a shopping/ecommerce website there may be 10 pages of products that all come under one category and therefore google may not pick page 1 to be the one that shows up in search results. This can all be rectified by simply either adding rel=”canonical” to each of the NON-canonical versions of the page in the section on the HTML page or by adding rel=”canonical” to the HTTP header on the page chosen to be canonical. The latter will indicate that this is the canonical page and will be taken by google as the page to prioritise and feed traffic towards. The former effectively works as a plug over the other pages that you don’t want the link juice to flow through to.
Steering your audience to the page that you want them to hit is a key factor in delivering relevant content. This is where the canonical tag becomes vital. It ensures that the “link juice” that is flowing through from your front landing page is going to the pages that you want people to land on. Otherwise the “link juice” will be split equally amongst all of the pages with similar content and none will rank as highly as they could if the canonical was in place. Se the diagram below, the red crosses symbolise the canonical line elements that stop the “link juice” flowing into the wrong pages.
The Importance of Link Juice
The above diagram displays the “link juice” I speak of, which is the currency that google works on. A site that has other relevant sites linking to it will have more of the juice coming in making it seem more reliable and therefore making google see it as the best. Getting more link juice will ensure that you rank higher on google than similar sites with less links to it, but steering that link juice to the correct pages on your site is where the canonical link element becomes a very useful tool!
About the guest blogger: Chris Derrer – The use of the canonical link element has strongly contributed in making The Watch Hut the UK’s largest watch website.