Just noticed that when I looked at a specific location page, e.g., example.com/location/some-city/ that the canonical link element points to the following as the canonical URL: example.com/location/
This is incorrect and highly undesirable for a couple reasons:
1 – essentially strips away all local value of the individual cities (perhaps other locations as well; regions, countries, neighborhoods) as it refers everything back up to a broader reference
2 – sends a very mixed signal to Google and other search engines as the content of the pages is most likely very different since the individual location pages are a subset of the top level location page.
On a sub note, canonical usage appears to be a bit spotty. When I looked at example.com/places/some-city/hotels/ there was no canonical link element at all. It does appear though on specific listing detail pages. Not that it has to be there, though consistency across the site would be nice.
Additionally, looks like example.com/places/some-city/ and example.com/location/some-city/ are essentially the same page/content? If so, would be nice if one automatically redirected to the other or in this case, if the canonical on one pointed to the other.
identity 9 years, 10 months ago.
