SEO Tycoon

**VirtuosiMedia** · 02-15-2009, 03:02 PM

Apparently the big three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Live, have released a new way to deal with duplicate content. By adding a link tag with an attribute of "canonical" in the head of a page containing duplicate content, you can suggest which page the search engines should treat as the master copy. You can find out more about it here.

**wayfarer07** · 02-15-2009, 04:04 PM

Thanks, this is helpful to me as early as today. I have a blog I was working on for a client (yes, I'm working on a Sunday), and was trying to think of a nofollow strategy to make the category pages the master pages instead of the thread following from the home-page. Since the blog is really focused towards the categories, it seems like a more natural way to organize the site. Nice to have a plain label like this, and still be able to leave the other pages as a natural duplicate copy.

**amerie** · 02-16-2009, 08:13 AM

Thanks. it is indeed a good news from G, Y and M. It's kind of rare to see the three big search engines work together.

**cachet.oes** · 02-18-2009, 02:25 AM

hi,

can any one elaborate in detail, even following the given link, i cant under stand how can i use this.

thanks

**wayfarer07** · 02-18-2009, 10:05 AM

Quote:

What don't you understand?

**jane0109** · 02-18-2009, 11:32 AM

Thanks for sharing that informative article.

**edgray** · 06-05-2009, 10:48 AM

So this only really helps with duplicate content caused by dynamicaly generated URLs and with content on the same domain?

**wayfarer07** · 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgray

So this only really helps with duplicate content caused by dynamicaly generated URLs and with content on the same domain?

My understanding is that it isn't limited to one domain. For example, say you plan to move a blog to another server, and set up a temporary mirror so that it may be tested. Then, the blog owner decides to make a posting in the new location before the nameserver switch is done. This probably will cause search engines to be pinged with the address of the new posts. You could indicate that the posts actually belong to the main website by indicating it with the canonical tag, though it is probably best to wait for the blog to have actually moved, so it isn't pointing at a blank location... This will tell search engines to point the index of these posts at the correct URL.

**juliensimon** · 06-05-2009, 03:55 PM

in case somebody wants more info:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...canonical.html

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/canonical-link-tag/ (this one even have a video from Matt Cutts for the lazy)

You can only use it within a domain.

**PointOfService** · 06-08-2009, 01:17 AM

I've used this before, it's really helpful in defining which URLs within your domain has the same content. Pretty easy to use too

**GeekSpecialties** · 06-08-2009, 01:34 AM

Great info, thanks for the links.

**edgray** · 06-08-2009, 06:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

My understanding is that it isn't limited to one domain. For example, say you plan to move a blog to another server, and set up a temporary mirror so that it may be tested. Then, the blog owner decides to make a posting in the new location before the nameserver switch is done. This probably will cause search engines to be pinged with the address of the new posts. You could indicate that the posts actually belong to the main website by indicating it with the canonical tag, though it is probably best to wait for the blog to have actually moved, so it isn't pointing at a blank location... This will tell search engines to point the index of these posts at the correct URL.

hmm. but if it's multiple domains, and it sees a canonical tag on both bits of content, how does it know which is the original? Could this not be used for negative SEO?

**shakir** · 06-10-2009, 05:09 AM

how.. thsi is very old information.. and all seo's are using .. but many knows know about it

**ericajoieake** · 06-11-2009, 11:10 PM

this will be very helpful to newbie seo!