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Technical SEO

Canonical tag

What is canonical tag?

A canonical tag tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page when several URLs show similar content.

Why it matters

Every indexable page should self-reference its canonical. Pointing canonicals at the homepage is a common, damaging mistake.

Canonicals are hints, not commands — conflicting signals such as internal links and sitemaps can override them.

Related terms

  • Indexing

    Indexing is the step where a search engine stores and organises a crawled page so it can be returned in results. A page

  • Duplicate content

    Duplicate content is substantially identical text available at more than one URL, either on the same site or across site

  • XML sitemap

    An XML sitemap is a machine-readable file listing the URLs you want search engines to crawl, along with optional metadat

Cite this definition

Guest Post Website. “Canonical tag.” Guest Posting & SEO Glossary. https://guestpostwebsite.com/glossary/canonical-tag