• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Technical SEO
        4. Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page

        Technical SEO
        4
        10
        15010
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Nanook1
          Nanook1 last edited by

          Is it better to use 301 redirects or canonical page? I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Dr-Pete
            Dr-Pete Staff @Nanook1 last edited by

            Glad you got it sorted out. If you're 301-redirecting a lot of domains, I'd suggest doing it gradually or maybe holding off on the lowest-quality domains. Google can see a massive set of redirects as a bit of a red flag (too many people have bought up cheap domains and 301-redirected to consolidate the link equity). If the domains are really all closely related or if you're only talking about a handful (<5) then it's probably not a big issue.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Nanook1
              Nanook1 last edited by

              I think things may be sorted out, but I am not sure. I actually put in 301-redirects from a bunch of domains that I own to this new domain, the content of which will eventually replace my main domain. But, I need to get the domain properly set up and optimized before I move it to my primary domain to replace the ancient web site. At that time, I will also redirect this site to the new, old site.

              I used to have Google ad-words tied to some of the domains that I 301-redirected to the new web site that I am building. Those were just a waste of money, however, so I put them on hold. I also had a lot of problems with semel and buttons for web bouncing off those pages that I re-directed. I put in .htaccess commands to stop those spam sites and that seems to work.

              Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Dr-Pete
                Dr-Pete Staff @Nanook1 last edited by

                Google seems to be indexing 30-ish pages, but when I look at the cached home-page, I'm actually seeing the home-page of http://rfprototype.com/. Did you recently change domains or 301-redirect the old site? The cache data is around Christmas (after the original question was posted), so I think we're missing part of the puzzle here.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Nanook1
                  Nanook1 last edited by

                  So, I think I may have had things wrong. For one thing, it seems like moz and Google are only indexing 2 pages, while the site index shows something like 80 pages. (I suspect an image is a page, and there are a lot of images. But, there are about 10 or 12 distinct pages at the moment. Also, Google and moz do not seem to show the correct key words in any sense like they should, leading me to think that they were just spidering 2 pages. I don't know why. I added the following to my index.html header:

                  and

                  I assume I put them in the correct place. I also believe I don't need canonical pages anywhere else.

                  Should these changes to my index.html make the proper changes?

                  Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Dr-Pete
                    Dr-Pete Staff @Matt-Williamson last edited by

                    Yeah, I'd have to concur - all the evidence and case studies I've seen suggest that rel=canonical almost always passes authority (link equity). There are exceptions, but honestly, there are exceptions with 301s, too.

                    I think the biggest difference, practically, is the impact on human visitors. 301-redirects take people to a new page, whereas canonical tags don't.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • Matt-Williamson
                      Matt-Williamson @MoosaHemani last edited by

                      In terms of rel=canonical that will pass value the same as a 301 redirect - for evidence have a look here:

                      http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/canonicalization

                      "Another option for dealing with duplicate content is to utilize the rel=canonical tag. The rel=canonical tag passes the same amount of link juice (ranking power) as a 301 redirect, and often takes much less development time to implement."

                      See DR Pete's response in this Moz Q&A:

                      http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/do-canonical-tags-pass-all-of-the-link-juice-onto-the-url-they-point-to

                      http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

                      https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?rd=1

                      http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2288690/how-and-when-to-use-301-redirects-vs-canonical

                      Matts Cutts stated there is not a whole lot of difference between the 301 and the canonical - they will both lose "just a tiny little amount bit, not very much at all" of credit from the referring page.

                      Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • MoosaHemani
                        MoosaHemani Banned last edited by

                        Ok, this is how I look at the situation.

                        1. ABC.com
                        2. ABC.com/index.php

                        So you have two URLs and the question is either to redirect301 or use canonical? In my opinion 301 is a better solution and this is because it will not only redirect people to the preferred version but the link value as well.

                        Whereas, with canonicals only search engines will know what is the preferred page but it will not transfer the link value which can help you with organic rankings.

                        Hope this helps!

                        Matt-Williamson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • Matt-Williamson
                          Matt-Williamson last edited by

                          You would put the canonical link in the index file and I would point that at the xxx.com version rather than the xxx.com/index.html version as people visiting your sites homepage are going to enter the domain and not the specific page so xxx.com rather than xxx.com/index.html.

                          There are some great articles on Moz explaining all this which I would suggest that you read -

                          http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/learn/seo/canonicalization

                          Dr Pete also did this post answering common questions on rel=canonical.

                          http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions

                          In terms of 301 redirects and canonicalization both pass the same amount of authority gained by different pages. If you are trying to keep it as clean as possible you need to be careful you don't create an issue redirecting your index file to your domain - here is an old post explaining how moz solved this 301 redirect on an Apache server

                          http://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/apache-redirect-an-index-file-to-your-domain-without-looping

                          I personally find that if all your links on your site reference your preferred(canonical) URL for the homepage so in this case xxx.com and you redirect the www version to this or vice versa depending on your preference then you add a canonical in the index.html file pointing at xxx.com in this case unless you prefer to do it the other way round with www.xxx.com for both you will be fine.

                          Hope this helps

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Nanook1
                            Nanook1 last edited by

                            I forgot. Of course, there is no xxx.com page, per se. It is actually xxx.com/index.html so if you needed to put the canonical reference on xxx.com, how would you do it?

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Browse Questions

                            Explore more categories

                            • Moz Tools

                              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                            • SEO Tactics

                              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                            • Community

                              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                            • Digital Marketing

                              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                            • Research & Trends

                              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                            • Support

                              Connect on product support and feature requests.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • Hasanovic

                              Google Not Indexing Pages (Wordpress)

                              google search console indexed urls indexation

                              Hello, recently I started noticing that google is not indexing our new pages or our new blog posts. We are simply getting a "Discovered - Currently Not Indexed" message on all new pages. When I click "Request Indexing" is takes a few days, but eventually it does get indexed and is on Google. This is very strange, as our website has been around since the late 90's and the quality of the new content is neither duplicate nor "low quality". We started noticing this happening around February. We also do not have many pages - maybe 500 maximum? I have looked at all the obvious answers (allowing for indexing, etc.), but just can't seem to pinpoint a reason why. Has anyone had this happen recently? It is getting very annoying having to manually go in and request indexing for every page and makes me think there may be some underlying issues with the website that should be fixed.

                              Technical SEO | | Hasanovic
                              1
                            • RebekahVP

                              Should search pages be indexed?

                              Hey guys, I've always believed that search pages should be no-indexed but now I'm wondering if there is an argument to index them? Appreciate any thoughts!

                              Technical SEO | | RebekahVP
                              0
                            • jessicarcf

                              Removing a canonical tag from Pagination pages

                              Hello, Currently on our site we have the rel=prev/next markup for pagination along with a self pointing canonical via the Yoast Plugin. However, on page 2 of our paginated series, (there's only 2 pages currently), the canonical points to page one, rather than page 2. My understanding is that if you use a canonical on paginated pages it should point to a viewall page as opposed to page one. I also believe that you don't need to use both a canonical and the rel=prev/next markup, one or the other will do. As we use the markup I wanted to get rid of the canonical, would this be correct? For those who use the Yoast Plugin have you managed to get that to work? Thanks!

                              Technical SEO | | jessicarcf
                              0
                            • fayfr

                              Nofollow/Noindex Category Listing Pages with Filters

                              Our e-commerce site currently has thousands of duplicate pages indexed because category listing pages with all the different filters selected are indexed. So, for example, you would see indexed: example.com/boots example.com/boots/black example.com/boots/black-size-small etc. There is a logic in place that when more than one filter is selected all the links on the page are nofollowed, but Googlebot is still getting to them, and the variations are being indexed. At this point I'd like to add 'noindex' or canonical tags to the filtered versions of the category pages, but many of these filtered pages are driving traffic. Any suggestions? Thanks!

                              Technical SEO | | fayfr
                              0
                            • TomLondon

                              Pages removed from Google index?

                              Hi All, I had around 2,300 pages in the google index until a week ago. The index removed a load and left me with 152 submitted, 152 indexed? I have just re-submitted my sitemap and will wait to see what happens. Any idea why it has done this? I have seen a drop in my rankings since. Thanks

                              Technical SEO | | TomLondon
                              0
                            • DavetheExterminator

                              Root vs. Index.html

                              Should I redirect index.html to "/" or vice versa?  Which is better for duplicate content issues?

                              Technical SEO | | DavetheExterminator
                              0
                            • Leighm

                              Should there be a canonical tag on my 404 error page?

                              In my crawl diagnostics, I notice some 4xx client errors. They are appearing for pages that no longer exist, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Shouldn't they just be dealt as 404's? Anyway, on closer inspection I noticed that my 404 error page contains a canonical tag which points to the missing page. Could this be the issue? Is it a good idea to remove the canonical tag from this error page? Thanks.

                              Technical SEO | | Leighm
                              0
                            • 5225Marketing

                              How to handle sitemap with pages using query strings?

                              Hi, I'm working to optimize a site that currently has about 5K pages listed in the sitemap.  There are not in face this many pages.  Part of the problem is that one of the pages is a tool where each sort and filter button produces a query string URL. It seems to me inefficient to have so many items listed that are all really the same page.  Not to mention wanting to avoid any duplicate content or low quality issues. How have you found it best to handle this?  Should I just noindex each of the links?  Canonical links? Should I manually remove the pages from the sitemap?  Should I continue as is? Thanks a ton for any input you have!

                              Technical SEO | | 5225Marketing
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            • Digital Marketers
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.