I know canonicals are for duplicate pages, but if I set all my blog posts to point to my main landing page, would that help boost it or am I risking hurting my SEO efforts?
First thing—using the landing page as the canonical for all your blog posts isn’t a great idea. A canonical URL should consolidate identical or near-identical pages, not direct all traffic to a single page.
@Weston
Exactly. Canonical tags are meant to manage duplicate or very similar content. If your site has issues with duplicate pages, a canonical helps, but for what you’re trying, better to use internal links or CTAs to guide users.
Don’t set all blog posts to point to the main landing page—it’ll essentially hide them and might not even help the landing page much. But you can experiment and watch your traffic trends. Roll it back if things go south, but this isn’t something most SEO experts would recommend.
@Harlan
Makes sense to test it first! My thought was that the landing page could benefit from the content across my blog posts, like making it rank better as a result.
Jerome said:
@Harlan
Makes sense to test it first! My thought was that the landing page could benefit from the content across my blog posts, like making it rank better as a result.
Canonicals should really be used when pages are almost identical. When pages are very different, Google might ignore the canonical. It’s more a suggestion than a rule.
@Harlan
Got it! Thanks, that helps a lot.
Jerome said:
@Harlan
Makes sense to test it first! My thought was that the landing page could benefit from the content across my blog posts, like making it rank better as a result.
Doing that could spike your bounce rate because people might not get what they searched for.
Jerome said:
@Harlan
Makes sense to test it first! My thought was that the landing page could benefit from the content across my blog posts, like making it rank better as a result.
If you test it, let us know how it turns out!
If someone lands on a blog post, they’re probably finding what they searched for. Sending them straight to the landing page instead might frustrate users and increase your bounce rate.
Can you explain what you mean by ‘sending all my blog posts to my landing page’?
Using a canonical like that could hurt long-term traffic, even if it gives the landing page a small boost. Instead, try adding clear CTAs in your blog posts linking to the landing page. That way, you guide users to it naturally, and those links might still help with SEO weight transfer.