Canonical tags
Canonical Tag A canonical tag is a HTML tag inserted within the <head> section of a website or can be applied via server headers. Its purpose is to resolve duplicate content issues by indicating to search engines, particularly Google, which version of similar or identical content across different URLs should be prioritized in search results….
Canonical Tag
A canonical tag is a HTML tag inserted within the <head> section of a website or can be applied via server headers. Its purpose is to resolve duplicate content issues by indicating to search engines, particularly Google, which version of similar or identical content across different URLs should be prioritized in search results.
This tag became necessary due to the prevalence of tracking parameters, which would cause different URLs to lead to essentially the same content, albeit with varying tracking data appended. Google would treat each URL separately, resulting in the indexing of duplicate content and diluting the site’s visibility in search results.
Unlike a redirect, which is a definitive instruction, the canonical tag functions more as a suggestion to Google. While Google strongly respects this hint and considers it in its ranking algorithms, it also takes into account other signals such as the presence of the URL in XML sitemaps or the number of inbound links. However, the exact weight of these signals in Google’s decision-making process remains somewhat opaque.
To ascertain whether Google is indeed considering the canonical URL specified, one can perform an info-query on Google using the canonical URL. If the resulting URL matches the specified canonical URL, it indicates that Google is acknowledging the directive; otherwise, it suggests Google is disregarding it.
Several guidelines ensure the effective implementation of canonical tags:
1. Each URL should have only one rel-canonical directive.
2. Absolute URLs with protocol and subdomain should be used.
3. Consistency is crucial, including using a single protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), either www or non-www, and maintaining uniformity in the use of trailing slashes.
4. Canonical targets must be functional URLs with HTTP 200 status codes, indexable, and intended for ranking.
5. Avoid creating canonical tag chains, as Google will ignore them.
6. Ensure that pages being canonicalized are genuinely similar in content; otherwise, Google may disregard the tag.
7. The Site Audit tool’s Issues report can help identify and resolve canonical tag-related problems, such as broken canonical links, multiple canonical URLs, and AMP pages lacking canonical tags.
