XML Canonicalization And URL Canonicalization
So you have been working hard to get your site ranking well. You have gone through all of the necessary steps to achieve SEO greatness, but somehow, somewhere along the line, you messed up big. You commited an SEO crime, and it starts with the letter “C”. Yep, we are talking about URL Canonicalization. Before I go any further, it would be best to state what this fancy word means.
In essence, any kind of URL is able to show a different set of data. So if you had the following urls:
- example.com/
- www.example.com
- example.com/home.asp
- www.example.com/index.php
… each one of them would be able to show something different. Now this is where a lot of folks get confused when laying the foundations for their SEO. When you have other websites linking to you, you want all of those links to point to the same url (when talking about one page in particular – you always want to diversify). What happens though, is that when you link to different variations of your site, such as the example above – you will not get the link juice you had hoped for.
Holy canonical! What do I do??
There are a few things you can do here. You have the option of specifying your preference from within your Google webmaster’s account. You can also tell the robots directly that you want all non-www pages, to redirect to a www page. You can even setup this preference from within your WordPress settings, if you are using WP of course.
So remember, when you are getting those links – make sure all of your hard work pays off, by directing the juice to the same place, because sometimes, the juice is worth the squeeze! Actually, that thought makes me thirsty… time for some juice.
