Canonical tags have been present for quite some time now, dating back to 2009. Google, Bing, and Yahoo were the first search engines to include this capability. To give website owners a fast and easy solution to resolve duplicate content concerns, we developed this function to help them. Using the canonical tag appropriately may help to avoid the negative impacts on search engine optimization that might result from having duplicate content across numerous URLs.

What is a canonical tag?

A canonical tag is a piece of HTML code that is responsible for establishing the principal version of a website when there is duplicate material or sites that are identical. This implies that if you have the same content on many URLs, you can use a canonical tag to define which version is the primary version that should be indexed.

In general, a canonical tag is intended to avoid any issues resulting from duplicate material on your website. If you want to use this HTML element, you should put it in the head section of your page.

For example, if a website includes various similar versions of the same content (for example, a product webpage that shows up under many categories), it is recommended that you choose one of these web pages to be the “canonical” version, which directs search engines to use this page when deciding ranking positions. In situations like these, search engines would be unable to determine which of the URLs to display unless the canonical tag was included.

What Is the Benefit of Canonicalization In Terms of SEO?

If you create a canonical URL for every duplicate webpages on your website, you will see a significant improvement in your website’s search engine optimization. This implies that the search engines will not consider all of the links that lead to the various URLs, but will instead consider the links that link to the one version that has been designated as the canonical version.

Duplicate content is disapproved upon by Google. It makes it more difficult for search to decide which version of duplicate material to index and which version should be prioritized for ranking for relevant searches. A large amount of duplicate material might also have an impact on your “crawl budget.”

Consequently, rather than finding additional valuable material on your website, Google may spend valuable time indexing several copies of the same page. Canonical tags provide a solution to all of these problems. It enables you to tell the search engine which version of a webpage they must index and rank, as well as where they should concentrate their link-building efforts.

How to Set Canonical URLs

Using a canonical tag for the main page of your website will be necessary if you have a page that appears on two separate URLs since it exists under more than one part of your website. Although the information on both URLs is identical, multiple pages are created as a result of the varied means of accessing the content on each.

The first step involves choosing the URL that will be used as the canonical version. This should be the version of the content considered to be the most significant. You may wish to choose a URL based on how many links point to it or how much traffic it receives. You must select just one, and you may choose it in any way you like.

You must then include a rel=canonical link to the canonical page on the non-canonical page for it to work. So, the chosen URL will have to be included in the head section of other URLs. For example:

When Should a Canonical Tag Be Used?

There are a variety of situations in which you may be required to utilize a canonical tag. Some of the most prevalent circumstances are described in further detail below.

Multiple URLs With Similar Content

A canonical tag is especially beneficial when you have a huge website that has a lot of information that is identical and repetitive. This is often used in e-commerce websites where it is possible to have a product page shown on many URLs at the same time. Examples include URLs that are created depending on price, color, size, and other variables.

URLs That Include Session IDs

When dealing with URLs that include session IDs, you may also utilize canonical tags. Consider the case when each login results in a unique URL. When it comes to search engines, HTTPS, and HTTP, for example – are treated as independent pages.

Placing Canonical Tags in Paginated Results

When content has been divided over numerous pages, it is important to ensure that canonical tags are appropriately applied. In such cases, search engines will not crawl any of the links referring to content on page two if the canonical element is set to refer to page one. Page two must be referenced via the canonical tag on page two.

Having a Page With Several Canonical Tags

On any given page, there can only ever be one canonical link. It is possible to provide numerous canonical URLs, but they’ll be disregarded. Unintentional consequences of using an SEO plugin poorly or wrongly altering a theme or template might occur without your knowledge and your consent.
Placing canonical tag elsewhere rather than the head section. Canonical tags should always be placed in the head section. Any canonical tags that are positioned elsewhere instead of the head section will be ignored. Hence, search engines will not be able to rank a specific URL.

Conclusion

The usage of canonical tags on a website is an effective approach for search engine optimization to reduce the problems associated with duplicating material on a website. For it to be successful, however, it must be utilized appropriately and consistently throughout the process. Applied incorrectly, canonicalization may cause a site to be much worse than it would be had the feature not been implemented. We hope this guide helped you learn the importance of using canonical tags and how you can correctly implement them.