Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Join Hands On “Canonical Tag”

Feb 13, 2009 | 1,173 views | by Navneet Kaushal
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Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are fierce rivals, but when it comes to a better cause, they never hesitate to collaborate with each other!

Recently, the giants came out with their individual statements that they will support a new Web standard so that all the Web publishers out there can remove duplicate pages from their Web sites. The top three search engines are implementing support for the new HTML tag – “<link>”. In an effort to clean the web, this collaboration will allow all the search engines to find and index more Web pages, making their search results more comprehensive. It's “Canonical Tag.”

“We are happy that everyone is going to support the same implementation,” said Nathan Buggia, a lead program manager at Microsoft. “This is a clear benefit for publishers as it gives them an opportunity to get more exposure through search engines.”

To implement Canonical URL form on website, you have to add the following link tag at head section of the site’s HTML.

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/products” />

For instance, with these URLs:

http://www.example.com/products?trackingid=feed

http://www.example.com/products?sessionid=hgjkeor2

http://www.example.com/products?printable=yes&trackingid=footer

“There is a lot of clutter on the Web and with this, publishers will be able to clean up a lot of junk,” said Matt Cutts. “I think it is going to gain traction pretty quickly, he further added”

This new tag won’t completely solve duplicate issues but at least “something is better than nothing.”

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Navneet Kaushal

About the author:

Navneet Kaushal, CEO PageTraffic is a trusted authority in the search engine marketing industry. He is a featured author at Web Pro News, Search Newz, Website Notes, DevWebPro, SEO Article and Web Help Now among many others.

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Debbie Morgan February 13, 2009 at 11:43

Thanks for this information. I’ve sent the url to my safety and security web site SEO guy to have this implemented.

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