Canonical URL

On Nov. 12, 2020, the Meta Keywords feature was replaced with a Canonical URL. Blackboard removed the Meta Keywords because Google officially stated they stopped accounting for meta keywords in Search Engine Results Pages in 2009. Bing stopped in 2014. It's understood within the industry that if you use them, a search bot determines that they are excessive and can work against you by penalizing how you rank in Search Engine Results Pages.

What is a canonical URL (also called a canonical tag)?

A canonical URL or tag (rel="canonical") is a snippet of HTML code that defines the main version for duplicate, near-duplicate and similar pages. In other words, if you have the same or similar content available under different URLs, you can use canonical tags to specify which version is the main one and thus, should be indexed.

Steps to set a canonical URL

1. Navigate to a page in Site Manager
2. Next to the page name, click Actions > Page Options
3. On the Advanced tab, enter an existing, valid URL to the Canonical URL field
4. Save

Best Practices

1. Blackboard recommends focusing on your 10-20 most visited/important pages within the site, or each school homepage.
2. Be consistent - For example, if you want https returned in search results, always set the canonical URL as https://www.myschooldomain.com, instead of www.myschooldomain.com.

Why would I want to set a canonical URL?

A canonical URL is one of many factors that influences how search engines determine search results. Since a WCM page can be accessed from multiple URLs, this allows you the opportunity to specify which URL you would like to have used as the primary URL for a page.

For example, a page on your WCM site may be accessible from all of the following URLs:

https://www.myschooldomain.com
https://www.myschooldomain.com/friendlywebaddress
www.myschooldomain.com
https://accountnumber.schoolwires.com

Can I get a list of the meta keywords that were populated?

Blackboard cannot provide a list of the previously populated meta keywords, since the meta keywords field was removed and the values were cleared. The meta keywords were having essentially no effect on SEO, and if there were more than about a dozen keywords, search engines could possibly have downranked the page, since it could look like a spam/junk search result.

Can I automatically set canonical URLs for all pages?

The canonical URLs need to be set manually on each individual page.

Is there any validation on the Canonical URL field?

There is no validation on the Canonical URL field, but making a mistake in this field won’t cause any particular problems; it just won’t help to positively impact search results.