Do we need to use a canonical tag when reposting a LinkedIn Pulse on our HubSpot blog?

[Mireille_Wathes]

Hi - We post articles on LinkedIn Pulse but have now started to publish the same article on our HubSpot blog a while later. Do we need to use a canonical tag on this blog and if so how do we do this? At the moment we just add the sentence 'This article was originally posted on LinkedIn' with a link to the Pulse. Any advice is much appreciated!

[Jim_B2BML]

Best practice if you're using content that is originally hosted elsewhere is to use a canonical tag to point to the original source of that content.

As far as I'm aware though, HubSpot doesn't let you add a canonical tag to a page that isn't hosted on your domain. In fact, you can't edit canonical tags at all! A page built within HubSpot automatically has its canonical tags set to point at the page itself. 

This means that any content on your site that is originally hosted elsewhere is going to be viewed as duplicate in the eyes of search engines and struggle to rank for organic searches. 

There's a request to make canonical tags editable on the HubSpot ideas section: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Ability-to-edit-canonical-tag-on-all-COS-pages/idi-p/...

Hopefully, (if enough people vote for it) the change will be made by the HubSpot team!

[Anonymous]

@Mireille_Wathes great question!

There is no way to insert a canonical tag into a LinkedIn post because you don't have access to their code. BUT! There is absolutely no need.

By simply publishing content on your own website first before publishing it on LinkedIn you give Google all the information it needs to recognize the content on your website as original. 

Google themselves have repeatedly stated there is no duplicate content penatly in situations likes yours. Simply make sure to post content on your website first, confirm it has been indexed by Google, then feel free to post it wherever else including LinkedIn.