Google SEO Ranking: Factor 19 Rel=Canonical

So besides the 301 redirect we presented before in factor 18. A rel=canonical tag passes the same amount of what is considered ranking power as would a 301 redirect. This like stated take less time to develop and implement.

When it comes to the HTML head of a webpage, it’s meta tag doesn’t change but consider what a nofollow (links that don’t go back to originator) it utilizes a new rel parameter. For example:

• <link href=”http://www.pizza.com/canonical-version-of-page/”rel=canonical”/>

This will then tell search engines that it should be treated as a copy of the URL

• pizza.com/canonical-version-of-page/

Here is an example of how rel=canonical would help with search engine rankings:

1. http://www.pizza.com/flavors/toppings/Pepperoni+Sausage
2. http://www.pizza.com/flavors/toppings/Pepperoni+sausage
3. http://www.pizza.com/flavors/toppings/pepperoni+Sausage

The main changes above were the endings where the capitalization on the P and the S varied. From your perspective it may not have changed anything. Especially if I had not bolded the words. But from a search engine view it would see that “pepperoni,” and “sausage,” are the same. By having the rel=canonical implemented to either lines 2 or 3 pointing to the other URL’s search engines would know to treat it as if it were #1. If utilizing certain CMS systems such as WordPress it will automatically redirect your link with a (-2) dash 2 to represent the duplicate link on the article. Search for a plug in or perform the rel-canonical to avoid having your page pushed down or not found online.

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