Importance of canonical tag

One of the major issues with search engine optimization is that most search engine may crawl two pages with similar content and frown at the whole website, giving it a low ranking on its result page.

It is common for most websites to have similar content on different web pages. Although they have different URL, a search engine crawler would not be able to identify the original content and slam the whole website with a low ranking.

For example, an eCommerce store that sells a blue jean could be listed under the category “clothes” and also under “jean” like this;

  • https://myexampleshore.com/clothes/blue-jean/
  • https://myexampleshore.com/jean/blue-jean/

But with canonical tags, you can indicate which URL is to be used by the search engines to display the results.

How Are Canonical Tags Specified?

Canonical tags are specified in the source code. For example, if you have an original content with the URL

  • <Link rel = “canonical” href = ” https://myexampleshore.com/clothes/blue-jean/ “/>

This element with the attribute rel = “canonical” must be added to the <head> section of these pages and all variants. It should be given the absolute URL (with domain), not only the relative URL (which would contain “/clothes/blue-jean/”).

How Are Canonical Tags Specified?

Canonical tags are specified in the source code. For example, if you have an original content with the URL

  • https://myexampleshore.com/clothes/blue-jean/

And if the same content can be retrieved via several other URLs, you can specify for search engines as follows:

  • <Link rel = “canonical” href = ” https://myexampleshore.com/clothes/blue-jean/ “/>
  • <Link rel = “canonical” href = ” https://myexampleshore.com/clothes/blue-jean/ “/>

This element with the attribute rel = “canonical” must be added to the <head> section of these pages and all variants. It should be given the absolute URL (with domain), not only the relative URL (which would contain “/clothes/blue-jean/”)

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