Google’s John Mueller answered a question about what happens to signals associated with syndicated content when Google chooses the partner as the canonical content publisher instead of the original. John’s answer contained some useful information about the murky area of classification and syndicated content.
The question was asked by Lily Ray (@lilyraynyc) on X (formerly Twitter).
“If an article is distributed among partner websites and Google chooses the partner as canonical (even if it is canonical on the partner site ➡️ in the original source), does that mean that all the SEO value is consolidated on the partner’s URL?
For example, link signals, UX signals, social media signals, etc. of the group would consolidate to the canon chosen by Google?
And each time this happens, does this represent an “opportunity cost” to the original site, in the sense that they lose that SEO value?
Lily asked about cross-domain canonicals and this:
Link Signals UX Signals Social Media Signals
John Mueller he tweeted:
“Hi Lily! It’s complicated, and not all of the things you ask are things we necessarily even use.
In general, if we recognize a page as canonical, it will be the page most likely to be rewarded by our ranking systems.”
John Mueller responded that Google didn’t use everything on his list, but he didn’t specify which items. Regarding canonicals, Google has a policy on the use of cross-domain canonicals in syndicated content.
Google announced last year that it no longer recommends cross-domain canonicals on syndicated content and instead suggests using the noindex meta tag on the associated site to prevent Google from fully indexing the site if the original publisher wants to ensure I know that the link signals the content corresponds to them and not to the syndication partner.
This is Current Google Guide for cross-domain canonicals:
“Tip: If you want to avoid duplication by syndication partners, the canonical link element is not recommended because syndicated articles are often very different in overall content from the original articles. Instead, partners should use meta tags to block your content from being indexed.”
John Mueller didn’t address what happens with link signals, but he did say that the site that is recognized as canonical is what Google’s ranking systems reward, and ultimately that’s the most important detail .
Featured image by Shutterstock/Graphic Farm
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