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Canonical URLs: Best Practices & How It Can Impact Your SEO
Last updated: Nov 08, 2024
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When you are maintaining your website and have duplicate content, it is important to have a canonical URL. Canonical link is the main version of a web page prioritized by search engines when there is exact or nearly duplicate content.
Then, how to set the right canonical URL? This article will guide you to learn the ins and outs of canonical links for your website.
What Is Canonical URL?
A canonical URL is the web page’s primary or original version that you want the search engine to index. Canonical links are essential for your site if you have similar or comparable content.
Search engines decide which URL is canonical in the end, but you can affect this choice by including the "rel=canonical" link element in the HTML code of your webpage.
See the canonical URL example here to find out what set it apart from the non-canonical one:
- Canonical link: https://thatsite.com/reference/
- Non-canonical link: https://thatsite.com/reference/?page=1
From those links, Google prefers the canonical ones to index and rank. This indicates that Google will only index one of your pages (the canonical one) if your website has duplicate content or pages that are nearly identical to one another.
Google will follow the canonical version that you already set, but if you have not, the search engine will identify the canonical one for you.
Yet, the thing is, you might not like the canonical page Google chooses for you. Therefore, if you already determined what pages to index, you can set the canonical URL manually.
Get to Know More about Canonical Tag and URL
You will come across canonical tags when working with canonical URLs. This section of HTML code designates the primary version of the website's same or nearly identical pages.
For ranking purposes, the search engine is instructed by the canonical tags element to consider only the version of a page that is identified within the canonical URL, ignoring all other versions. Therefore, Google can index and rank the right version of the content.
Canonical tag can be found in the <head> section of the HTML source code as follows:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://thatsite.com/insert-the-url-here/| />
Typically, canonical tags use an alternate page to connect to the target page. However, each canonical page should have a canonical tag that points to its own URL.
Will Canonical URL Affect SEO?
Canonical URLs will assist you in identifying duplicate content problems on your website because they determine which pages Google should index.
When multiple URLs point to the same content, search engines may have trouble deciding which page to display in search results. Alternatively, you may have practically identical information, such as similar content in both American and British English. To prevent keyword cannibalization, this is where canonical considerations come into play.
Your website may include duplicate content if it targets the same keywords and has a similar function. Because the search engine cannot determine which website is the most relevant result, it will hurt each other's ranks.
This problem will also affect SEO since it will lessen the influence of backlinks, waste crawling resources, damage the site's reputation, and decrease the number of pages that are crawled.
In conclusion, Google will be able to determine which pages to index and rank by establishing a canonical URL.
Canonical URL Best Practices
Since canonical URLs are crucial for your site, you might plan to employ one for your web pages. The best practices below can lead you to do so:
1. Create One Canonical URL Element for Each Page
To use a canonical URL, make sure that you design one element for each page. This is because web crawlers may have trouble identifying your preferred version of the content when you specify numerous canonical URLs. This may lead to problems with indexing and ranking.
In addition, if you have multiple canonical tags for the same page, Google might not index the page and is likely to disregard both canonical tags.
2. Avoid Setting 404 as Canonical URLs
When a website or resource fails to be found, the browser returns a 404 status code. Usually, this occurs as a result of the page being removed or taken offline.
Although you should not purposefully mark a 404 as canonical, this mistake nonetheless happens occasionally on websites since people frequently move or take away pages. Therefore, it is crucial to look for gone pages that have been designated as canonicals.
3. Use Self-Referencing Canonical URL
Self-referencing canonical tags refer to tags that point to the chosen page's URL in its HTML code. Google is instructed by these tags which page to index and display in search results. Despite a website's lack of duplicates, using a self-referencing link helps prevent issues caused by incorrect URL parameters.
4. Keep Non-Canonical URLs Out of Your Sitemap
Google instructs webmasters to not list non-canonical URLs to the sitemap to prevent the search engine from seeing them as suggested canonicals.
Similar to canonical tags, this is only another indication that Google is better understanding your site's content, but it does not guarantee that a URL in your sitemap will always be considered canonical.
5. Be Consistent on Your Site
Last but not least, you must verify that your website has the appropriate version before setting up a canonical URL. You also should ensure no typos on your web pages and that the canonical link element is immediately updated with the removed or redirected URLs.
Conclusion
To sum up, canonical links are necessary for your content to crawl as efficiently as possible. Additionally, this connection keeps your site's duplicate content problems from undermining your SEO efforts.
Furthermore, you must utilize efficient SEO best practices to ensure that your website is well-designed and optimized for both search engines and human users. You may trust SEO Service by cmlabs in this regard. Thus, schedule a consultation right now to discuss your SEO requirements for free!
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