epages short URL's and canonical tag

[Bertie]

I have seen one or two suggestions by BT that the short URL now available in the BT eShop will act as a canonical tag and solve the serious search engine problems caused by duplicate sites being created by having a www.mydomain.co.uk address and the www.btowstore.com/epages/BT.....sf/en address.

According to Google, the canonical tag will not work across domains, although it will work across sub domains.

301 redirects apparently can work across domains.

The obvious concern is that Google will see the two sample addresses shown above as two different domains and therefore the canonical tag will not work.

Can someone from BT allay my fears and explain:

a) how Google will view the duplicate sites, and

b) confirm that the canonical tag will in fact work, and improve SEO on the eShops

Many thanks.

[eShopTeam]

Hello Bertie,

Your Google information is absolutely  right. The cannonical tag will not work across different domains (as you show in the example) that's why we recommend to publish only one domain outside.

About your question "b";  from now, one page (for example; a product page) can be called for differents URLs, so you can duplicate contents.The new cannonical assures that the same page called by different URLs is understood by Google as one page.

All the page ranks are now concentrated to one relevant page. And: This relevant page is shown with a short name in the

Google index.

Kind Regards,

[Bertie]

Thank you for your reply, the contents of which concern me greatly.

Your recommendation to publish only one domain is a very good suggestion and is one we have been trying to achieve since the site was established.

Unfortunately BT appears to have prevented this due to the way the eShops are set up.

For example, it is quite easy to go to a site www.mydomain.co.uk and move around within that domain. However, once the 'Register' link is clicked, this takes you away from the www.mydomain.co.uk site to the www.btowstore.com/epages/BT....sf/en domain. Once in this domain, all pages accessed remain in the btowstore domain with the result that registered customers will probably forever continue to access the site via this btowstore domain.

In addition, the email sent to registered customers confirming registration contains hyperlinks directly to the btowstore site to both complete registration and also to contact us if they wish.

Consequently, two identical sites exist with different domain names, and we know that Google does not like duplicate pages, hence the suggestion for 301 redirects and the introduction of canonical tags. Your confirmation that the canonical tag will not work across different domains is telling me that this facility will not work on BT eShop sites.

Am I correct?

Regards

[eShopTeam]

Hello Bertie,

Since the registration and the check out SSL links and the Bt shops do not have their own SSL certificates, there is no another way than use the secure Bt domain.

Therefore, all links (also the outbounds e-mails) which are not part on the check out and registration process, provide URLS with the own shop domain.

Kind Regards,

[Bertie]

Thank you for replying.

Sorry, but I do not feel you have fully answered my query.

The secure registration and checkout pages do not need to be, and shouldn't be indexed.

I agree that the rest of the site which is not part of the checkout and registration process provides URL's with our domain name.

My point is that the rest of the site also provides duplicate pages with btowstore domain names. Consequently there is a duplication problem resulting from two identical sites with different domain names which Google will not like. 

How does the canonical tag overcome this if it will not work across different domains?

Regards

[eShopTeam]

Hello Bertie,

For more information on the canonical tag, please see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html.

As you can see from this article, the tag resolves the issue regarding double content. Every shop page (except the checkout and customer account pages) has this canonical tag. If you are using your domain with the shop and have created the short URLs, your pages might be accessed using a URL like this: http://www.myshop.co.uk/myproduct. However, the same page can still be accessed by the URLs http://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT1234.sf/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT1234/Products/myproduct or https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT1234.sf/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT1234/Products/myproduct. All of the pages hold the same content and they all have the canonical tag with URL http://www.myshop.com/myproduct and will therefore all be listed with the short URL.

Sincerely,

[Bertie]

Thank you for your reply.

The following is an extract from the http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html. site you suggested:

Can this link tag be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
No. To migrate to a completely different domain, permanent (301) redirects are more appropriate. Google currently will take canonicalization suggestions into account across subdomains (or within a domain), but not across domains. So site owners can suggest www.example.com vs. example.com vs. help.example.com, but not example.com vs. example-widgets.com.

 This appears to contradict your suggestion that the canonical tag will work with the different domains of  

http://www.myshop.co.uk/myproduct.

http://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT1234.sf/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT1234/Products/myproduct

Am I correct?

Regards

[Bertie]

Any News??

[Bertie]

Do you have a problem answering my post BT?

[eShopTeam]

Hello Bertie,

At first thank you, your concerns and informations are very valuable. We are sorry for the late answer. We have overviewed your concerns and you are right. A permanent 301 redirect is the only solution, to avoid google indexing the cross domain "btowstore.com". We have forwarded this to the software developer and got answered it has been added to the fix list. Btowstore.com urls will be then permanently 301 redirected to the same page "mydomain.co.uk". Exceptions are urls with sessions. This includes basket and unfortunately registered users, because of ssl certification needed, there is no other option we have on this.

These changes has been planned taken care of next year.