Thread: Canonical Error

I have one question what is canonical error and how this problem can be overcome?

In this case what I would recommend is to make the pages be a bit different, for example it seems that the only difference is the mediaSource property used for the Silverlight control, but everything else is the same. This property is set through Javascript which is ignored by most search engines so really they see the pages as the same page.

I would recommend adding some differences, such as generating a different title maybe depending on the video source, or adding a different description, or something that trully make them look like they are different pages. You can imagine that this is desirable since even if search engines were to index those pages, their listing would look identical which wouldnt help users find the right content. You want unique titles and descriptions that really help users distinguish the right page from the search engine quickly.

To start, canonicalization is the process of redirecting multiple URLs that have identical contents into one preferred URL. A canonical error is present when you can access the same page using different URLs. Take a look at this example from The Official Microsoft IIS Site, [url]http://forums.iis.net/t/1164636.aspx:[/url]
[QUOTE]... Error Details: The page with URL "http://www.waterdogkennel.com/video.aspx?video=WaterdogKennel2" can also be accessed by using URL "http://www.waterdogkennel.com/video.aspx?video=WaterdogKennelTraining” Search engines identify unique pages by using URLs. When a single page can be accessed by using any one of multiple URLs, a search engine assumes that there are multiple unique pages. Use a single URL to reference a page to prevent dilution of page relevance. You can prevent dilution by following a standard URL format. Is this an SEO error I need to be concerned about (this is a much cleaner design then creating many pages)? or the tool is not destinguishing between a true canonical format and variables being passed to a single page.[/QUOTE]
One way of preventing this issue is through the use of the canonical tag. You can read on the Google Webmaster Central Blog for further elaboration on canonicalization: [url]http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html[/url]