Lets Discover What Is Canonical Tag In SEO and its complete guide in this blog. Canonical Tag is very important for SEO. You have to let search engine know if the page is a master content or a alter content with this tag.
In the complex realm of SEO, discerning the many tools available to us is essential for success. Among these tools, one that is often overlooked is the canonical tag. So what makes up a canonical tag in SEO? Just to simplify it, it is a strong HTML element which aids webmasters in avoiding duplicate content problems while reducing search engine indexing time and also improving site’s search engine optimization results.
In this thorough guide, we’re going to take a deep dive into canonical tags – what they are, why they are essential for SEO and how they can be correctly implemented plus why those factors contribute to high search engine rankings. Knowing canonical tags is key – this will guarantee that the content on your site is exceptional enough in order to attract high ranking on various search engines irrespective of whether one is an SEO beginner or an experienced one.
Under standing of Canonical Tag: What is Canonical Tag
Canonical tag has been used as HTML tag since 2009. It gives an indication to search engines that this page is the master page. Let’s clear the issue of master page and duplicate page first.
Your website can sometimes have the same content at different URLs. This can happen for various reasons. For example, if you have amp enabled on your website, you will notice that two urls are created for the same content. So, when the search engines come to index your page, Canonical tag originates to guide which page to index. Different pages of a website can be created manually like,
https://www.example.com/index.html,
https://www.example.com/index.php,
https://www.example.com/default.htm,
One thing should be said beforehand Canonical tag will never work like Robots.txt. It is not a directive like Robots.txt. It means that like Google indexes your specific pages through Robots.txt, this will not happen in case of Canonical tag.
Adding the canonical tag doesn’t mean Google will index the page, but it can be a strong indication. This can be a signal of the page index.
Canonical tag is an HTML tag on a page. But when I just say Canonical it can mean something different. There can be two types of canonicals. User Declared Canonical and Google Declared Canonical.
User Declared Canonical: When the user adds the Canonical tag to a certain page and gives the idea to Google, it is the master page then it is User Declared Canonical.
How Google Determines a Canonical URL
When Google crawls and indexes a site, it reviews the content. Checks if same page exists. If there is, then Canonical selects the page whose content is suitable for the visitor, the main topic is well.
As mentioned earlier, Google will not only index Canonical tag, but will take many other factors into consideration. Google will also consider internal links, external links etc. along with canonical tag.
If you link your page internally through Query parameter then there is a good chance that Google will ignore the Canonical tag and select the Query parameter as Canonical.
Query parameters can be, for example,
/?mango_color=yellow,
Also, Google crawls give RSS a lot of importance, so make sure that you have specified the Canonical URL in the RSS feed.
Even if you add a URL to the RSS feed (/?source=feed) to track website traffic or RSS subscribers, Google gives importance to it. Although Google knows it is tracking query.
You can use various link shortening services or RSS services like FeedPress to use URLs in RSS feeds.
However, Google will always give importance to user experience considering all aspects. The page which is good for desktop will be considered for desktop and that which is good for mobile will be kept for mobile.
How Canonical Tag Helps in SEO
Canonical tag is very important for a website with many pages. This tag is important for several reasons.
Canonical tag in indication of master page
You can give indication to Google to index the best version page of your website. Canonical Tag will give you that opportunity.
Duplicate content
You might think your website doesn’t have duplicate content because you haven’t put the same thing on different pages. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be duplicate content. Duplicate content may be created without your knowledge for a variety of reasons. So first you need to know what Google means by duplicate content.
According to Google’s classification, it will be considered duplicate content if the primary content is same and the language is same. Again, if you have amp installed on your wet site, you may be creating duplicate content without your knowledge. In these cases the blog creates multiple folder paths. Again, HTTP and HTTPS versions of your website may have different URLs.
Google considers canonical pages as primary sources
Google considers page content quality based on canonical pages. Google crawls canonical pages more frequently than non-canonical pages. Any updates to Canonical pages are frequently indexed by Google.
Canonical tags help with crawl budget
You may have heard about Crawl Budget when it comes to big websites. Canonical can help reduce the burden on your crawl budget after budgeting properly. By doing this, Google will frequently crawl your Canonical versions, except Non-Canonical.
But note that it is never a substitute for no-index tags, redirects or Robot txt.
Combine links
Canonicals can guide Google to take information from multiple same pages and consolidate them into a single URL. This means that Google crawls all the same content pages and creates the best combination.
Content syndication
Publishing your own content to third party websites is called content syndication. Through this, you can present your content to a large audience.
In that case, content writers can publish their content without changing it completely. You can use canonical tags in content syndication. This will show your original content in the search results.
How to Add Canonical Tag
One can easily improve the Search Engine Optimization through the addition of canonical tag in web pages. You can add this canonical tag by including an exact HTML link element in a web page head. For example, <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/your-page/”>.” You should change the URL to something you prefer to be indexed by search engine robots.
This way, you’re letting search engines know which is the right page when there are multiple versions out there, so that they can avoid indexing identical information and place your copy where it should be. To direct search engines on the right track and for the sake of maintaining your SEO approach’s credibility, this is a simple but highly efficient method.
Final Thought:
SEO’s complex web requires one to master tools like the canonical tag to boost their site’s performance. The canonical tags allow search engines to determine the main information from duplicated content and index the right pages. Site administrators should use these tags since they help prevent replication of data and improve overall search performance parameters.
In case you have duplication of content from multiple versions of AMP pages, multiple URL versions or if you syndicate content, implementing the canonical tags rightly will greatly affect your site’s search engine ranking in a positive way because it?ll enable you to manage your crawl budget properly, keep your link information in one place and make sure that the most important content appears first.
You can add a simple HTML link element to your webpage’s head section to direct search engines to index the most preferred version of your page thus keeping the SEO strategy intact and the best done search results are always maintained. Utilize canonical tags in order to uphold individualistic, authoritative and top ranked content on search engine result pages.
