A Quick Guide to Canonical Tags

If you are an SEO, it’s important to educate yourself on the importance of canonical tags on your site. Here is a quick guide:

First: What is a Canonical Tag?

A canonical tag is the part of the URL that you want the search engine to treat as authoritative. It identifies the page as the primary version in the case that two duplicates exist.

Example: www.example.com/this-is-my-preferred-url

Why are Canonical Tags so important?

Canonical tags help Google understand and rank your pages. Duplicate pages can create keyword cannibalization, which is when different pages on your site that have the same keywords are working against each other, negatively impacting their ranking. You want to make sure the version of the page that you want appears with the corresponding search.

How to Use Canonical Tags

Practically speaking, in order to use canonical links, you need to label the link within your HTML. For example:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”www.example.com/this-is-my-preferred-url/” />

However, the exact implementation depends on what platform you are hosting your site on and what plugins you are using to edit ti.

Quick Tips

Be sure to only have canonical URLS and not the duplicate pages in your sitemap, according to Google’s Search Central. Don’t forget to regularly update your sitemap!

Create ONE canonical URL per page in order to see best results.

If you already editing the canonical tag in the website editing platform you are using, don’t edit and add it to the website’s HTML.

If your site uses HTTPS, include your canonical URL.

Clarify whether you are using non-www versions of the URL or www versions of the URL.

Establishing canonical tags is an important aspect of SEO! Keeping your site map and pages as clean and organized as possible will greatly improve your ranking and is highly recommended for sites at all levels.

Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/canonical-url-guide/