I’ve noticed a few blog posts recently regarding the reliability of the relatively new canonical element. This element or meta tag can be used to resolve duplicate content issues where web based content can be accessed from a variety of URL’s.

For instance your website homepage could possibly be viewed by navigating to www.site.com/ or www.site.com/default.php or even www.site.com/default.php?action=home. Internal and external links could point to all variations making it difficult for search engines to determine the primary document. This can lead to a fragmented internal link profile and possible penalties for duplicate content.

Implementing the canonical element in the offending page allows you to indicate the primary document.

I tested this on a clients site, where the homepage was indexed in Google under two different URL’s. It was a great success; within 24 hours of the homepage being spidered the duplicate page was dropped!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.