>>> <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.myradiomall.com/Default" /> <<<

After researching this and discussing it with my SEO provider, this is a major bug. I first reported this on another post, but it should be addressed here AS A BUG.

I know that support usually answers in the middle of the night, but I just want to make sure that this is addressed. Do you know how dangerous having this statement from a SEO perspective this is? Do you understand that you're telling Google to ignore the most important page on your website and check for a duplicate someplace else?

This is a major flawed and I need to know exactly where in the code this line is being produced, so I can remove it. You will never see a statement like the above on any other major website. Anyone who uses Ablecommerce that has this statement attached to their index page will suffer.

Was this an oversight, or a miss understanding of what this tag actually does?

Sorry, this is major stuff, and it really needs to be addressed, and I consider this a major bug !!!!

=== Actual notes from my SEO provider ===

*To-do Immediately:

- The homepage has a canonical tag to "https://www.myradiomall.com/Default". With this canonical tag you’re telling google “Google the original content of this page isn’t https://www.myradiomall.com but is https://www.myradiomall.com/default . Remove that canonical tag. After removing, add a canonical tag or a 301 redirection (preferably) on the page https://www.myradiomall.com/default to the homepage version https://www.myradiomall.com (To make it clear for Google that the original page isn’t /default but the base url of the site.).

Many Thanks

Edited by user Monday, November 29, 2021 7:55:41 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thank you so much, I was quite concerned about this. I have not done SEO in a while and my skill sets are quite rusty. I reached out to three other people, and they all tend to agree on the initial comment.

Furthermore, I searched high and low for this file but couldn't find it.

Happy that AbleCommerce is extremely module and changes like this are easy to make. I hope others read this and make the appropriate changes, so their sites would not be penalized.

Thank you again

I will do my very best to reply your question. Keep in mind, as specified above, my SEO is rusty, and I'm actually upgrading my skills this coming month.

No, there should not be a canonical tag at all on the index page. I think the paragraph that I posted from my new SEO agency makes it apparent. Whether you believe in juice or not, the primary focus should be your index page, which should be your main root URL.

Telling Google that you are deflecting your main root URL to somewhere else, or transferring your juice to another page, is not a good idea, especially when it's the root of your website, your main door.

I understand that Ablecommerce, because of its module design, has given this page a default name of "default", but the problem is, it still loads as "default" and now competes with your main root URL. To make it even worse, you are now telling Google, that this should be your main page and not your root URL. In other words, you're transferring your juice somewhere else. Of course Google can disregard this, but why would you do this in the first place?

You also might have noticed that I have done a redirect back to the homepage in the event you were to try to go to the default page.

Duplicate pages sometimes exist because of the way shopping carts are designed. For instance, another duplicate page exists for my homepage at "https://www1.myradiomall.com/", but I'm not telling Google to go there.

We have moved to AbleCommerce from a shopping cart that we have been using for 20 years, we are constantly on the Google Search Console fixing errors, some of them which are actually created by the way AbleCommerce functions. We are on top of this, and so far, we have been able to rectify many things.

I know that you have an SEO team on your staff, unfortunately I was not happy with them and had to go someplace else for this very reason. The foundation of a website needs to be fixed first before trying to implement any type of keywords enhancements. Everything begins with your homepage, not a good idea to ask Google to go someplace else.

Just my thoughts, we can discuss more on the phone if you wish.

Thanks

Hi Mike,

Duplicate content is not a good thing to have because you can spread what is called juice across multiple pages, this in turn can dilute your main pages.

I don't think it's up to Ablecommerce to decide what tags should be included, that is a decision to be based on individual needs.

With regard to your question, please go to any heavily visited top sites. Examples like:

- Motorola Solutions
- HP
- Amazon
- Instagram
- Pinterest etc..

Not one of them has a canonical tag at the root URL, not one. I've gone to the top five of my competitors, they are using shopping carts, ranging from Magento, Shopify to many other SAAS. Again, not one of them has a canonical tag at the root URL, telling it to reference another identical page from an identical page.

Let me decide what homepage I want Google to care about, telling Google to reference a different page, from an identical page, it's not a good thing. Again, I think the bottom line is, let the user choose whether a canonical tag is needed, especially at this level.

I hope this helps,
-Ray

Edited by user Tuesday, November 30, 2021 6:31:50 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified