Canonical Question

[Probability]

Hi,

I'd like my homepage to rank as high as possible and don't want any other pages to rank. I'm thinking of canonicalizing the following and want to make sure I have this right and will not be penalized.

/videos
/blogs
/producers

If I canonicalize those to the homepage is that OK and will the PR those pages have be passed on to the homepage helping it rank higher?

I understand this is at best a bit marginal at best since the content is not duplicate but I'm hoping there is some benefit I can gain for the homepage at the expense of my other pages without risk of a penalty of some kind.

Thanks

[barlow1984]

If I'm honest I question this strategy. My first opinion is that it wont work. For the simple fact that is someone is searching for "your website keyword video" your homepage is going to be much less relevant than the videos page is.

I think that Google only really takes the canonoical tag as a guide and wont fully trust it because essentially what you're trying to do is manipulate the rankings which I would advise against.

[phatmike10]

You're completely right Barlow (think we've chatted before, we've got a house in Leek down Southbank street, small world!)

Rel=Canonical should only be used in cases where 301s can't be used like for sort pages. Google uses rel=canonical as a guide not an absolute.

With Google cracking down on spam practices I would always suggest using instruments for their intended purpose i.e. don't manipulate Google.

[jimmyn]

Why do you only want the home page to rank?

[Probability]

Thanks for the answers.

I only want my homepage to rank because I have a simple site without many levels. All categories are easily accessible from the homepage. I don't mind the other pages ranking but if I could have them not rank and in exchange have the homepage move up slightly that would be best for my business.

I do have a followup. My about page is ranking for a term that should be driving traffic to my homepage legitimately. Would it be OK to canonical that? What about the FAQ page and similar pages?

Thanks again.

[barlow1984]

Even this case my advice would be not to do it because it's still manipulating the results and a risky strategy. You can not list the pages you want to but there is no way to transfer their search relevance to other pages.