Google offered a statement to clarify their support for the cross-domain canonical link element (rel=”canonical”), noting the limitations in how they use it, saying that they “try” to use cross-domain canonicals while noting where it is not recommended.
Google this week wanted to simultaneously release multi-page updates targeting cross-domain canonicals, but instead they were released in a staggered fashion, leading to confusion over whether Google still supports cross-domain canonicals.
There are two changes to note.
1. Google clarified its guidance on duplicate content for news publishers who distribute content to Google News.
Here’s the new content added to the guide on what to do with content syndication:
“Tip: If you want to avoid duplication by syndication partners, the canonical link element is not recommended because syndicated articles tend to be very different in overall content from the original articles.
Instead, partners should use meta tags to block indexing of your content.
Learn more about the canonical link element.
Avoid duplication on your own site
If you publish the same article on multiple pages of your site, you can use the rel=”canonical” link element.
Learn how to specify a canonical.“
The update doesn’t represent a change in policy, it’s just meant to clarify guidelines on how to avoid duplication when syndicating content.
2. Google also clarified the guidance on what content should be blocked from Google News.
Specifically, the change was made for publishers who republish all content, such as from cable services, in collaboration with other publishers, or from public domain sources.
The most important change was to remove the guidance that encouraged publishers to consider using canonical.
The original page contained the following suggestion:
“Consider blocking or canonical for reposted content”
The updated guide now suggests this:
“Consider blocking reposted content”
Also, this part was changed to remove the suggestion to consider a canon.
This is the original proposal (snapshot from archive.org):
“Google News also encourages those who republish material to consider proactively blocking such content or using canonicalization so that we can better identify the original content and credit it appropriately.”
And this is the updated guide now without the suggestion to add a canonical:
“Google News also encourages republishers to consider proactively blocking such content, so we can better identify the original content and credit it appropriately.”
It is important to note that the above pages are considered a guide and not a policy statement.
That’s why the guidance uses the word “consider,” which is different from recommending that editors “should” do something.
Google issues a statement about the canonical link element
Google provided Search Engine Journal with the following statement to make it clear that Google still supports the canonical link element.
They wrote in the email:
“We support the canonical link element, which is primarily designed for use within a site to self-identify what should be considered the canonical version of a page when there may be duplicates or near-duplicates.
We also try to support canonical on all domains, but canonical is not recommended for those who want to avoid duplication of syndication partners, because the pages are often very different.
We’ve updated some of our guidance on this to better advise those distributing content.”
It is now clear that Google still supports cross-domain canonical link elements.
They also make it clear that this is not a recommended practice for publishers who want to avoid duplicating content syndication.
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