Reaching for the Top Search Engine Positions
When marketing a Web site with the search engines the ultimate goal of every Web site owner and Webmaster is to have their Web pages listed as high as possible with the search engines of the Web. Ten years ago, that was not difficult if you knew the tricks of the trade, but today things have become slightly more difficult. That is a good thing.
The search engines of the Web, at least the major ones, are much better nowadays in everything they do and that includes indexing and ranking Web sites according to sophisticated calculations and algorithms. There is a lot of competition among Web site owners for best possible search engine listing positions and the major search engines are doing a fine job in piling through billions upon billions of Web pages to deliver to the Web user the best possible match for each query.
Recently, good news emerged that may help both Web site owners and the search engines to deliver best possible results. Web site owners can place a special tag, the canonical Meta tag, in the header section that informs search engines about which URL is correct when accessing the content. This will help lessen the number of duplicate Web pages the search engines need to pile through to be able to deliver the best possible search results for the Web user.
The data below obtained from two large samples of Web sites shows the occurrence of the canonical Meta tag and might be an indication of its adoption rate among Web sites.
| Canonical Meta Tag | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | Observed Category | % Found | ||||||
| Canonical Meta Tag | General | 3.55 | ||||||
| Canonical Meta Tag | Prominent SE Position | 2.71 | ||||||
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