For Google search algorithms, content uniqueness is an important ranking factor, and the presence of duplicate URLs or separate content on a site can have a very negative impact on the position of a web resource in search results. That is why search bots sometimes need to indicate which page with duplicate or similar content is the main one, and which (or which) is secondary. This is what the canonical tag is used for.
What is a canonical URL
A canonical page is a page whose address is written into the HTML code of a website and indicates to search engines that it is the main page and that its content should be taken into account when ranking.
The REL Canonical code looks like this:
From Google’s perspective, SEO canonical is important for several reasons:
- Preventing duplicate content: Canonicalization helps tell search engines which version of a page to index and show in search results.
- Improved SEO performance. The canonical tag focuses link weight and other SEO factors on a single URL.
- Simplifying content management. The canonicalization tag can greatly simplify the work with a large number of similar or even identical pages on a site.
In what cases is its use required?
A very clear example is when one product can be located in several sections of an online store at once. Let’s say an electric bicycle can be located in the sections “sporting goods”, “personal transport” and “electric transport” at the same time. Accordingly, we get three different URLs, which at the same time have identical content. So that Google does not perceive these pages as duplicates, canonical links are used.
For greater clarity, we suggest you consider several other examples of how to specify the canonical address of a page and when this may be relevant.
Example #1. Simple page
Let’s say you have a product on a site with multiple URL variations, like this:
To specify the base URL, you can put the following canonical URL in each “color” version:
This way we tell Google that https://example.com/product is the main one, and …color=red and …color=blue are secondary.
Example #2. Pages with sorting options
Your site has different products, and users can sort them by price, date added, and other parameters. Accordingly, URLs like these will be used:
As in the previous case, the problem of duplicate content is solved by specifying the main URL:
It is the main category page that will be canonical (main) for Google, and the rest will be secondary. Even if you have a dozen sorting parameters.
Example #3. Pagination pages
URLs with pagination (numbering) are usually typical for blogs. For example:
In this case, the situation is a little more complicated. For the first page, you can specify:
For subsequent pagination URLs, the base android mobile app development URL typically points to the appropriate page, for example:
It is important not to get confused in the numbering and to indicate the correct URLs so as not to disrupt indexing and ranking by search engines.
How to set up rel=”canonical” correctly
We mentioned above that the canonical tag is written in the HTML code of the site. This is the most common, but still not the only way to specify a warranty, canned and bottled canonical page. Therefore, let’s consider all the available methods. And then you can choose the one that is optimal in your case.
1. On the website page (basic method)
This is exactly the method we mentioned earlier. It is extremely simple: you just need to write a tag in the HEAD section of the HTML code that will link to the canonical (main) page. When you have several URLs, when choosing a canonical one, wkind of usa lists guaranteee recommend paying attention to traffic (choose the most visited one), as well as the presence and number of internal and external links.
2. Via an XML map
This is also a fairly simple method, which consists of placing canonical links for each page in the XML sitemap. However, this method has a drawback: sometimes search engines can ignore these recommendations. Therefore, in most cases, it is better to use the basic method described above.