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SEO

What is Canonical URL?

The <link rel="canonical"> tag that tells Google the "main" URL of a page.

Detailed definition

When the same content can be reached at more than one URL (filters, sorting parameters, http/https, with or without www), it is a signal that tells Google which address is the main one. Google treats the tag as a hint, not a directive; there is no separate penalty for duplicate content, but when signals conflict Google may choose the wrong URL as the main one. A self-referencing canonical on every page is common and correct practice.

Examples

  • /products?sort=price and /products?sort=date are different URLs — the canonical should be /products/.

Related terms

On-Page SEO The SEO optimisation carried out on the page itself: title, meta description, heading hierarchy and content quality. hreflang The link attribute that states which language sits at which URL on multilingual or multi-region sites. Meta Description The short description that can appear under the title in Google search results. It is not a ranking factor but influences whether people click. SERP (Search Engine Results Page) The search engine results page — the mix of organic results, ads and rich snippets the user sees after searching. Google Ads Google's advertising platform — Search, Display, YouTube, Shopping and PMax campaign types.
Category SEO

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From the same category

Other terms in the SEO category

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) The discipline of increasing a website's organic (unpaid) visibility on Google and other search engines. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) The framework Google uses in quality assessment: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. It is not a direct ranking factor. Core Web Vitals The three main metrics Google uses to measure site performance: LCP, INP and CLS. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) How long the page's main content block (usually the hero image or heading) takes to load. Good: <2.5s, poor: >4s. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) The total score for unexpected layout shifts while the page loads. Good: <0.1. Schema.org / Structured Data A shared vocabulary for marking up information on web pages (products, prices, organisations, articles) in fields machines can read; used for Google rich result eligibility, with no ranking guarantee.
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