When and how to use rel="canonical" for dynamic URL's

Question

We are creating dynamic URLs with a combination of service names and city names. Below are the sample pages.

Please let us know in which page do we needs to add rel="canonical" and which link to add in canonical tag.

If city name is added in url the application shows all avalibale food service in given city & hence there are chances of getting duplicate contents are more.

If city name is not there in url it means it will list all food services across all cities.

Page 1. abc.com/food
Page 2. abc.com/food/pune
Page 3. abc.com/food/mumbai

Do I needs to add

<link rel="canonical" href="abc.com/food"/> in Page 2 & Page 3

Or

<link rel="canonical" href="abc.com/food"/> in Page 1,
<link rel="canonical" href="abc.com/food/pune"/> in Page 2,
<link rel="canonical" href="abc.com/food/mumbai"/> in Page 3

You would use a canonical link to indicate the preferred page for search engines to index if the other page(s) might be considered a duplicate. You have not explained how these pages are related and which one would be the canonical page. — dan, Jan 06 '17 at 08:02
See also: What is duplicate content and how can I avoid being penalized for it on my site? — Stephen Ostermiller, Jan 06 '17 at 11:48

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 02 '18 at 18:10

Instead of simply listing "all food services across all cities" in the absence of a city name, I would personally add additional content to the general food page that you cannot find on pages that are city-specific.

Then I would add a canonical link to each page.

<link href="abc.com/food" rel="canonical" />
<link href="abc.com/food/pune" rel="canonical" />
<link href="abc.com/food/mumbai" rel="canonical" />

Here's an example from YellowPages.com:

<link href="https://www.yellowpages.com/houston-tx" rel="canonical" />
<link href="https://www.yellowpages.com/houston-tx/restaurants" rel="canonical" />

When and how to use rel="canonical" for dynamic URL's

1 Answers1