Comments on: Will Publishers Add Cross-Domain Rel=Canonical to Syndication Deals? http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/cross-domain-rel-canonical-syndication/ News media SEO, PR and social media marketing Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:23:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Adam Sherk http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/cross-domain-rel-canonical-syndication/#comment-610 Adam Sherk Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:16:38 +0000 http://www.adamsherk.com/?p=785#comment-610 A related thought to that John is that cross-domain rel=canonical does help in creating the most positive user experience both from a search engine and an on-site perspective. For users discovering content via search engines filtering out duplicates makes sense, as showing multiple versions of the exact same article in the top results is not a useful experience. But since lots of users still discover news via direct navigation to particular sites, syndication with rel=canonical allows the content to gain a wider audience without impacting the search experience. The catch is that most syndication partners won't be willing to implement the tag, in the hopes that they can still get some search referrals for their versions of the content. A related thought to that John is that cross-domain rel=canonical does help in creating the most positive user experience both from a search engine and an on-site perspective.

For users discovering content via search engines filtering out duplicates makes sense, as showing multiple versions of the exact same article in the top results is not a useful experience. But since lots of users still discover news via direct navigation to particular sites, syndication with rel=canonical allows the content to gain a wider audience without impacting the search experience.

The catch is that most syndication partners won’t be willing to implement the tag, in the hopes that they can still get some search referrals for their versions of the content.

]]> By: john andrews http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/cross-domain-rel-canonical-syndication/#comment-602 john andrews Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:05:46 +0000 http://www.adamsherk.com/?p=785#comment-602 We need to notice that Google mentions indexing very carefully whenever discussing rel canonical. It is an indexing management tool... label a page non-canonical and you tag it for de-indexing. Keep that in mind when considering scenarios. I can see how Google might like to keep that low profile among the general population (so it can safely drop 2ndary/tertiary content versions from the index), yet go higher profile in the seo/webmaster community (so as to influence the use of rel canonical). We do live in interesting times. We need to notice that Google mentions indexing very carefully whenever discussing rel canonical. It is an indexing management tool… label a page non-canonical and you tag it for de-indexing. Keep that in mind when considering scenarios.

I can see how Google might like to keep that low profile among the general population (so it can safely drop 2ndary/tertiary content versions from the index), yet go higher profile in the seo/webmaster community (so as to influence the use of rel canonical).

We do live in interesting times.

]]> By: Adam Sherk http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/cross-domain-rel-canonical-syndication/#comment-592 Adam Sherk Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:17:00 +0000 http://www.adamsherk.com/?p=785#comment-592 Good point David, there's certainly a lot of potential for abuse and too much misuse will render it useless, so it'll be interesting to see how Google handles the tag moving forward. The cross-domain announcement doesn't make any mention of link-related properties. No mention would imply that the tag works the same cross-domain as it does on the same domain, but I haven't seen anything definitive on that yet. (The original rel=canonical announcement back in Feb simply said "Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well.") Hopefully people will start sharing their results with cross-domain testing soon. Good point David, there’s certainly a lot of potential for abuse and too much misuse will render it useless, so it’ll be interesting to see how Google handles the tag moving forward. The cross-domain announcement doesn’t make any mention of link-related properties. No mention would imply that the tag works the same cross-domain as it does on the same domain, but I haven’t seen anything definitive on that yet. (The original rel=canonical announcement back in Feb simply said “Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well.”) Hopefully people will start sharing their results with cross-domain testing soon.

]]> By: David Mihm http://www.adamsherk.com/seo/cross-domain-rel-canonical-syndication/#comment-591 David Mihm Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:51:32 +0000 http://www.adamsherk.com/?p=785#comment-591 Adam, I seem to remember Matt Cutts expressing some concern when this was announced (at SMX Advanced?) that SEOs would see this as a way to canonicalize non-identical pages across multiple domains...and get de facto link juice flowing into a page they control. Presumably this latest announcement means there is no linkjuice passed by this tag? Adam,

I seem to remember Matt Cutts expressing some concern when this was announced (at SMX Advanced?) that SEOs would see this as a way to canonicalize non-identical pages across multiple domains…and get de facto link juice flowing into a page they control. Presumably this latest announcement means there is no linkjuice passed by this tag?

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