Technical Seo
Canonical Tag
An HTML element (rel="canonical") that tells search engines which version of a URL is the preferred or master copy. It consolidates ranking signals when duplicate or near-duplicate pages exist.
Why Canonical Tag Matters for SEO
Without canonicals, search engines have to guess which version of a page to index. You end up with diluted ranking signals spread across multiple URLs instead of concentrated on the one that should rank.
How Canonical Tag Works
You place a tag in the
of a page. Search engines treat it as a strong hint (not a directive) to index the canonical URL and pass link equity to it. Self-referencing canonicals on every page are best practice.Common Mistakes
- Setting canonicals to pages that are noindexed or return 404s
- Having conflicting canonical signals between the tag, sitemap, and hreflang
- Canonicalising paginated pages back to page 1 when each page has unique content
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