• BBgmoro

        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.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          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.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • 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

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Canonical Tag and Affiliate Links

        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.

        Canonical Tag and Affiliate Links

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        6
        3162
        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.
        • jorgediaz
          jorgediaz last edited by

          Hi!

          I am not very familiar with the canonical tag. The thing is that we are getting traffic and links from affiliates. The affiliates links add something like this to the code of our URL:

          www.mydomain.com/category/product-page?afl=XXXXXX

          At this moment we have almost 2,000 pages indexed with that code at the end of the URL. So they are all duplicated.

          My other concern is that I don't know if those affilate links are giving us some link juice or not. I mean, if an original product page has 30 links and the affiliates copies have 15 more... are all those links being counted together by Google? Or are we losing all the juice from the affiliates?

          Can I fix all this with the canonical tag?

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KT684
            KT684 last edited by

            Hey Jorgediaz, first off I think it would be wise to add the canonical tags specifying the primary URL for all of your pages, additionally it wouldn't hurt to add the parameter in question to your Google webmasters tool letting Google know to ignore your affiliate parameters.  You can find that in the Site Configuration settings under the 'parameter handling' tab.

            I personally woudln't worry too much about the 'loss of link juice' since I think what Matt Cutts is talking about is more duplicate content that results from shopping carts that might serve up a very similar page based on a filter (such as re-ordering products by price).  In my experience affiliate links aren't the greatest in the first place, many are probably even using your publisher ID sending the link to an intermediary source for tracking purposes, so to recap, if it were me I'd add the canonical, add the parameter in your webmaster tools and leave it at that.

            Hope this helps.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • GeorgeDavis
              GeorgeDavis @jorgediaz last edited by

              How we help users and webmasters with duplicate content
              We've designed algorithms to help prevent duplicate content from negatively affecting webmasters and the user experience.

              1. When we detect duplicate content, such as through variations caused by URL parameters, we group the duplicate URLs into one cluster.

              2. We select what we think is the "best" URL to represent the cluster in search results.

              _3. We then consolidate properties of the URLs in the cluster, such as link popularity, to the representative URL._Consolidating properties from duplicates into one representative URL often provides users with more accurate search results.

              If you find you have duplicate content as mentioned above, can you help search engines understand your site?
              First, no worries, there are many sites on the web that utilize URL parameters and for valid reasons. But yes, you can help reduce potential problems for search engines by:

              1. Removing unnecessary URL parameters -- keep the URL as clean as possible.

              2. Submitting a Sitemap with the canonical (i.e. representative) version of each URL. While we can't guarantee that our algorithms will display the Sitemap's URL in search results, it's helpful to indicate the canonical preference.

              Source

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • jorgediaz
                jorgediaz @adrianvender1 last edited by

                But are we losing link juice without using the canonical tags right now?

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

                  Hi Jorge,

                  If I am not mistaken the /product-page would receive link juice for the links with ?afl=XXXXXX at the end.  No need to worry.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • adrianvender1
                    adrianvender1 last edited by

                    You can use the canonical URL tag (i.e. rel="canonical") to instruct the search engines what the primary URL should be and avoid any duplicate content issues. You can also setup query parameter exclusions with the different search engine webmaster tools to instruct them to ignore these affiliate query parameters.

                    Regarding link juice, there is a video from Matt Cutts that suggests that there may a fractional loss of link juice with Canonical URL references, but nothing to be worried about.  So to answer your question, you will still have link juice passed when using the canonical URL tag.

                    watch?v=zW5UL3lzBOA

                    jorgediaz 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 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

                    • Alancito

                      Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded in Google webmaster tools.

                      canonical google webmaster

                      In Google Webmaster Tools, I have a coverage issue. I am getting this error message: Alternate page with proper canonical tag Status: Excluded. It gives the below blog post page as an example. Any idea how to resolve? At one time, I was using handl utm grabber, but the plugin is deactivated on my website. https://www.savacations.com/turrialba-costa-ricas-garden-city/?utm_source=deleted&utm_medium=deleted&utm_term=deleted&utm_content=deleted&utm_campaign=deleted&gclid=deleted5.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alancito
                      0
                    • muzzmoz

                      How (or if) to apply re canonical tags to Shopify?

                      Anyone familiar with Shopify will understand the problems of their directory structure. Every time you add a product to a 'collection' it essentially creates a duplicate. For example... https://www.domain.com/products/product-slim-regular-bikini may also appear as: https://www.domain.com/collections/all/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/product-slim-regular-bikini https://www.domain.com/collections/bikinis/products/product-slim-regular-bikini etc, etc It's not uncommon to have up to six duplicates of each product. So my question is twofold: Firstly, should I worry about this from an SEO point of view? I understand the desire to minimise potential duplicate content issues and also in focussing the 'juice' on just one page per product. But I also planned on trying to build the authority of the collection pages. If I request Google not to index the product pages which link off the collections, does this not devalue these collections pages? Secondly, I understand the correct way to fix these is using 'rel canonical' tags, but I'm not clear about HOW to actually do this. Shopify support has not been very helpful. They have provided two different instructions, so just added to the confusion (see below). Shopify instruction #1: Add the following to the theme.liquid file... <title><br />{{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
                      {% if page_description %} {% endif %} Shopify instruction #2: Add the following to each individual product page... So, can anyone help clarify: The best strategic approach to this inherent SEO issue with Shopify (besides moving to another platform!)? and If 'rel canonical' tags is the way to go, exactly where and how to apply them? Regards, Murray

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz
                      1
                    • moon-boots

                      How to add Canonical Tags on Opencart Products

                      Does anyone know how to add canonical tags to product pages in Opencart? Is this possible to do in htaccess? If so, how specifically should it be written in? Please do not post any links to other pages which reference generic canonical information as I've read them all and none help. I'm looking for an Opencart specific answer, or a way to do it in htaccess.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots
                      0
                    • 94501

                      Null Alt Image Tags vs Missing Alt Image Tags

                      Hi, Would it be better for organic search to have a null alt image tag programatically added to thousands of images without alt image tags or just leave them as is. The option of adding tailored alt image tags to thousands of images is not possible. Is having sitewide alt image tags really important to organic search overall or what? Right now, probably 10% of the sites images have alt img tags. A huge number of those images are pages that aren Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 94501
                      0
                    • blankslatedumbo

                      Should I use **tags or h1/h2 tags for article titles on my homepage**

                      I recently had an seo consultant recommend using tags instead of h1/h2 tags for article titles on the homepage of my news website and category landing pages. I've only seen this done a handful of times on news/editorial websites. For example: http://www.muscleandfitness.com/ Can anyone weigh in on this?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | blankslatedumbo
                      0
                    • Choice

                      Does a non-canonical URL pass link juice?

                      Our site received a great link from URL A, which was syndicated to URL B. But URL B is canonicalized to URL A. Does the link on URL B pass juice to my site? (See image below for a visual representation of my question) zgbzqBy

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice
                      1
                    • luxresorts

                      Duplicate Title tags even with rel=canonical

                      Hello, We were having duplicate content in our blog (a replica of each post automatically was done by the CMS), until we recently implemented a rel=canonical tag to all the duplicate posts (some 5 weeks ago). So far, no duplicate content were been found, but we are still getting duplicate title tags, though the rel=canonical is present. Any idea why is this the case and what can we do to solve it? Thanks in advance for your help. Tej Luchmun

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | luxresorts
                      0
                    • NakulGoyal

                      Wildcard Redirects & Canonical Tags

                      I have an interesting situation. Current URLs Example1: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html New URL:
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-4567.html Current URLs Example2: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html New URL:
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789.html Current URLs Example3: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1.html
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
                      www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html New URL:
                      www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html I want to make sure all variations of the above URL redirect to the new URLs.  However, as you see in Example 3, we are dealing with variables that are passed on. (+5 in this case). Question 1: What wildcard 301 redirect / regular expression can I use to tackle these ? Question 2: If we redirect www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html to www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html and www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html contains the canonical tag www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html, any concerns or red flags here ?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NakulGoyal
                      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 - 2026 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.