top of page
Search
  • Writer's picturePGW
    • Sep 2, 2022
    • 8 min read

Canonical URLs: Why They Are Important & How to Use Them


Table of Contents

Canonical URLs help webmasters solve the problem of duplicate content issues.

Knowing how to implement them correctly is essential for SEO.

Besides, using them inaccurately can adversely affect your site’s performance.

Canonical tags have been around since 2009. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo united to create them to help site owners quickly solve duplicate content issues.

This article will discuss what canonical URLs are, how they work, why they are crucial for your website, and how to use them.

Let’s begin!

What is a Canonical URL?

Canonical URL, aka canonical tag, is an HTML link element with the attribute of rel=canonical found in the <head> element of your webpage.

Canonical tags tell search engines the preferred URL from among different web page versions.

The search engines know which webpage to crawl and index with the help of canonical tags. This is critical because URLs can have variations yet similar content.

Image source: Digital Garg

Compare the following URLs:

  • www.example.com

  • https://m.example.com

  • https://amp.example.com

  • https://example.com?ref=twitter

Although the URLs are different, they refer to the same webpage.

Search engines can find this challenging because they might not know which one has the right content.

However, if you use a canonical URL, search engines will rank only the preferred version of your URL from a set of URLs and ignore the rest.

Hence, even though different URLs on the site have the same content, your site won’t get penalized by Google.

Why Do I have Duplicate Content?

If you own a website, you know that content is king. Besides bringing and engaging visitors to your site, it’s what search engines analyze when ranking websites.

If your content is unique, relevant, and engaging, it has a higher chance of ranking higher in the search engines.

On the contrary, search engines will decrease your ranking if your site has duplicate content.

Some webmasters don’t even know they have duplicate content on their websites.

So, what are the reasons for duplicate content?

Various reasons can lead to content duplication. These include:

  • Regional domain prefix: If your website is available in different regions, you need to use canonical tags to point to the main content to prevent duplicate content.

  • Transfer protocol/subdomain variations: If you can access a site through different URLs, as shown earlier, search engines will consider these as separate pages.

  • Mobile versions: Mobile site versions are often available through different URLs. You need to use canonical tags to differentiate the two.

  • Product pages: The issue of duplicate content is rampant in eCommerce stores, especially when there are different variations of the same product.

  • Copied content: You may need more than one website to publish the same content in some cases. If this is the case, you should canonicalize the preferred content.

Image source: Explore Insiders

Google Panda was an algorithm launched in 2011 that penalized sites having lots of duplicates and low-quality content. Now, Panda is a part of Google’s core algorithm.

If you don’t want Panda to hit your site, you should identify and fix duplicate content issues on your site with the help of canonical URLs.

What Does a Canonical Tag Look Like?

Here is how a canonical URL looks like:

<link rel="canonical” href="https://example.com">

Suppose you have an eCommerce product page – myecommercesite.com/product-a

Now, this product can be accessed from a number of URLs such as:

myecommercesite.com/allproducts/product-a

myecommercesite.com/top-selling-products/product-a

myecommercesite.com/products-priced-below-100/product-a

There can be many different URLs that might point to the same content.

In such a case, you should add a canonical URL in the head section of all the duplicate pages to tell search engines the correct version of the URL.

In our example, we want to keep the URL: myecommercesite.com/product-a as the preferred URL. So, we will add the following canonical tag in the <head> section of all the three duplicate content pages:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://myecommercesite.com/product-a"/>

Why Are Canonical Tags/URLs Important For SEO?

Image source: Shopify

The primary function of canonical tags is to solve duplicate content issues.

However, canonical URLs are also crucial for SEO. Here’s why.

Canonical Tags Specify The URL That You Want To Be Displayed In Search Results

When you set a canonical tag, search engines know which version of the page to display. Duplicate content can cause several SEO problems, and search engines might not know which content to rank. As such, they miss some of your authoritative content.

Canonical Tags Simplify Tracking Metrics For A Single Product/Topic

When there are several URLs, it can be challenging to get consolidated metrics for individual content. However, using canonical tags makes it easier to track the performance of each page.

It Prevents Googlebot From Crawling Duplicate Pages

If you have a large website, canonical tags ensure Googlebot crawls your new webpages instead of the duplicated versions of the same content. However, this can only be an issue if you have hundreds or thousands of pages.

Canonical URLs Consolidate Links For Duplicate Content and Manage Syndicated Content

Canonical URLs help search engines combine information about a URL into one authoritative URL. Besides, they also help to consolidate page ranking to your preferred URL.

When and How Should You Use Canonical Tags?

Now that you understand what canonical tags are and their importance to SEO let’s see when and how to use them.

  • Use canonical tags whenever you have duplicate content on your site.

  • Use them when offering similar products with a slight difference, especially if you own an eCommerce store.

  • Use them when structuring additional information for a specific URL. It sorts and specifies content on a webpage (URL parameters).

Difference Between Canonical Tags and 301 Redirects

Many people use canonical tags, and 301 directs interchangeably.

However, they are different from each other.

Canonical tags help you specify the URL you want to be displayed in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

On the contrary, a 301 redirect helps permanently move one URL to another. When a user types in a URL, it redirects them to another URL. It communicates to servers, browsers, and users that the URL they are trying to access has been moved to another URL. Users don’t notice 301 redirects because the final URL loads in the browser.

Here’s when to use 301 redirects:

  • When there is a change in the domain name due to rebranding.

  • If you’ve changed the URLs of your website.

  • When a page from your website no longer exists.

How To Create Canonical Tags on WordPress

The easiest way to create and use canonical tags on WordPress is to download a WordPress plugin such as Yoast SEO or RankMath.


Here are the steps to create canonical URLs using Yoast SEO:

  • Log in to your WordPress site.

  • Navigate to the page or post that you want to change.

  • Head over to the advanced section of the Yoast SEO meta box under the ‘SEO’ tab.


  • Enter the complete canonical tag, including http/s and www or non-www, in the ‘Canonical URL’ field.


  • Update the post/ page

If you’re using the RankMath SEO plugin, follow the below steps to create canonical URLs:

  • Edit the post/page. Go to the specific article you want to canonicalize and click on ‘Edit.’

  • Navigate to the advanced tab located in the Dashboard.

Source: Rankmath

  • Change the canonical URL field to point to the main source of your content.

Source: Rankmath

Once you’ve set the canonical tag, save the post and update just as you do after publishing a post.

How To Create Canonical Tags in Wix

Wix automatically generates canonical tags for all your posts.

Here’s how to change a custom canonical tag in Wix:

  • Click on the current page in the top left corner and scroll down to manage pages within the site editor.


  • A list of pages will show up. Click SEO basics.


  • Click on the ‘Advanced SEO’ tab and scroll down to find the canonical URL field, and click ‘Edit.’


  • Edit your tag under ‘Tag value.’


  • Click ‘Apply.’

You can also remove a canonical tag and restore the original one. Here’s how to do it:

  • Go to your page’s SEO settings

  • Head over to the ‘Advanced SEO’ tab.

  • Hover over the tag over Meta Tags.


  • Click the ‘Show more icon.’

  • Click ‘Edit.’

  • Click ‘Reset Pattern.’


How To Create Canonical Tags in Shopify

One of the major problems you can face when using Shopify is product duplication. This can limit your ranking ability.

However, you can reduce product duplication issues by the use of accurate canonical tags.

You need to edit how your site generates or pulls its canonical tags.

Here’s how to do it:

To add a canonical tag in the Shopify store, add your store’s theme and select “Edit code” under “Actions.”

Now, locate theme.liquid that you can find under “Layout.” Here, you need to enter the below code above </head> closing.

<link rel="canonical" href="{{ canonical_url }}"/>

  • Click the ‘Show more icon.’

  • Click ‘Edit.’

  • Click ‘Reset Pattern.’

Canonical Tag Best Practices

Keep the following best practices in mind when optimizing canonical URLs:

Use Absolute URL

You can use rel=” canonical ” with absolute or relative links. However, to minimize confusion, you should always use absolute URLs, such as:

<link rel=” canonical” href= “https://www.website.com/page-a/”/>

And not:

<link rel=” canonical” href=”/page-a/”/>

Audit Your Site For Canonicalization Issues

Always inspect your web pages to ensure duplicate content has a canonical tag. To inspect any URL, you can simply check the HTML source code of any page to determine if a canonical tag has been added to any duplicate pages.

You need to ensure that the page is crawlable and indexable. Open Search Console and enter the page URL at the top of the bar, as shown in the image below.


Now, wait for some second, and the tool will tell you whether your page is crawlable and indexable or not.

Use Canonical Tags Sparingly

You should only canonicalize pages that have duplicate content; otherwise, you risk excluding other relevant pages from rankings. So, only canonicalize if the pages are similar.

Canonicalize Your Homepage

It’s always recommended to canonicalize your homepage because it’s your most referenced page. Besides, homepage duplicates are the most common.

Always Use Lowercase URLs

Search engines treat uppercase and lowercase URLs as different URLs. When using canonical tags, use the lower case for consistency. This is important because it ensures the right URL is indexed.


Use The Correct Domain Version

HTTP and HTTPS are not interchangeable, and if you interchange their canonical tags, it could confuse the search engine bots. So, if your site uses HTTP, don’t set your canonical tags with HTTPS.

However, Google recommends using HTTPS on your site to improve user experience. Hence, you should move your site from HTTP to HTTPS to make it secure and UX-friendly.

Mistakes To Avoid When Implementing Canonical Tags

Implementing canonical tags can be tricky. Here are mistakes to avoid when implementing canonical tags.

Do Not Block Google From Crawling Specific URLs Via Robots.txt

If Google does not crawl or index a page, the page won’t have any chances of ranking. Instead of blocking Googlebot from crawling different pages, use canonical links, and the search engines will themselves know which page to display.

Mixed Signals

Only canonicalize one source of original content for multiple pages. In simple terms, don’t canonicalize page A > page B, and then page B > page A.

This is confusing, right? The search engine may make a bad choice. If page A is canonical, the correct canonicalizations scheme should be page B > page A; page C > page A; page D> A, and so forth.

Canonicalizing To a 301 Redirect

You should not canonicalize a URL that will be redirected. Instead, set the canonical link to be the redirect target.

Canonicalizing To Irrelevant Content

It’s easy to think canonicalizing unrelated content can increase page rank, but canonicalization doesn’t work this way—only canonical duplicate content.

Setting Multiple Canonical URLs

If you set multiple tags, they’ll be ignored by search engines. Don’t include two canonical tags within the <head>. If you set multiple tags, search engines will ignore them. So, each page should use a single canonical tag.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, a canonical tag is a URL chosen as the master URL for a set of duplicate web pages.

The biggest advantage of using canonical links is that it boosts SEO, increases traffic flow, and improves the reliability of data collected from Google Analytics.

Start using canonical URLs to upgrade your SEO strategy and bookmark this canonical tag guide for future reference.


REF:-


3 views0 comments
  • Writer's picturePGW
    • Sep 2, 2022
    • 2 min read

Why Buy A .co.uk And A .com Together?



If you are one of thousands who is setting out on a digital adventure, you’ve most likely struggled with which domain, or domains, to register to protect your idea from anyone who might try to capitalise on your hard work. This can be a difficult task, as many entrepreneurs struggle to choose one domain, never mind several.


Brand protection

Many major corporations take brand protection very seriously. For example, in 2015, Google’s parent company Alphabet actually registered the domain abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com. The domain is far too long to be used, and instead, Alphabet operates under abc.xyz. However, the example demonstrates the lengths – literally! – that business owners will take to protect their creations.


While the US doesn’t officially own the .com top level domain, most US companies begin with a .com domain, just as UK companies begin with a .co.uk domain. The .com domain extension has now become an international web address and appears in search engine results around the globe, which is why many businesses choose the .com version first. However, there are some benefits to registering both a .com and a .co.uk that you may not know about. Of course, owning both is not an absolute necessity, but ask yourself one simple question:


How will I feel if someone registers the .com version of my domain as a direct competition to my business?

If the thought of another business operating under your brand name makes you uncomfortable, it should. As long as the domain is floating around unclaimed, anyone can register it and use it for their own purposes.


The perks of monopolising your brand

Keep in mind that if you were to buy every domain available that included your brand name, you would burn through your budget very quickly. There are hundreds of gTLDs (Generic top-level domains) from .guru to .club that could include your brand. So, before you begin bulk registration of hundreds of new domains, take a moment to prioritise.

There are a few reasons to register a domain outside of your main web address. The first is to prevent anyone else from using it. The second is to use a new domain to reach new audiences. The third, and perhaps most appealing, is to take advantage of the SEO benefits that come with domain redirects. While you may not be concerned with international sales, you are most likely interested in protecting your ideas, and who wouldn’t like a little push in search engine results. When operating with both .com and a .co.uk domains, your website will appear in UK searches as well as international searches due to the .com. Registering both a .com and a .co.uk for your website is a beneficial move for any online enterprise.


The best of both worlds

Once registered, all that’s left is to set the redirect and watch your traffic grow. Rest easy knowing that your domain is protected from squatters. So why not protect your brand and get an SEO benefit in return by owning both the .com & .co.uk versions of your online business domain name?





Ref: -

2 views0 comments
  • Writer's picturePGW
    • Aug 17, 2022
    • 7 min read

Get to know the Wix Site Inspection tool


Knowing whether your pages have been crawled (discovered by Google) or indexed (stored in Google’s index), or whether your structured data markup is valid, for example, can help you fine-tune your online presence and make large leaps in search visibility.




For years, Google has provided this information via Search Console, its platform for measuring search traffic and performance. To make those insights and tools more accessible to all business owners and SEO professionals, Wix now offers an approachable way to monitor and understand your site’s issues and indexing status at scale.




The Wix Site Inspection tool enables you to keep an eye on your site’s technical health, mobile usability, rich result eligibility, and more, without having to pull the data manually or leave the Wix dashboard.




In this article, we’ll discuss:




The Wix Site Inspection tool




Our Site Inspection tool enables you to monitor the status of your pages in Google’s index from within your Wix dashboard. The data within the Site Inspection dashboard (shown below) comes directly from Google via its URL Inspection API.



The Wix Site Inspection dashboard.


The Site Inspection tool is organized to show you:


  • The proportion of your pages that Google has indexed and excluded

  • The most common status details associated with your pages

  • An overview of your site’s usability on mobile devices

  • The index status, status details, mobile usability, and rich results eligibility for each of your URLs



This can be very valuable information because URLs that aren’t indexed aren’t eligible to show in Google’s search results, meaning that your potential clients, customers, and visitors will never discover those pages in Google Search.




How to get started with the Wix Site Inspection tool


To access your Site Inspection dashboard, first, go to your Wix dashboard. In the left-hand navigation panel, click on Marketing & SEO, and then SEO Tools from the dropdown menu. Finally, select Site Inspection.



If this is your first time accessing the Site Inspection tool, then you’ll be prompted to inspect your site (as shown above). Because the data comes from Google, your website must first be published and connected to Google Search Console (GSC). Once you’ve run the inspection, you’ll be taken to the Site Inspection dashboard.




The Site Inspection dashboard at a glance


The top of the Site Inspection dashboard includes a Highlights section that can help you understand your site’s overall health in terms of Google indexing and mobile usability (how well your site pages work on mobile devices).



Let’s take a closer look at each of the three sections that make up your Site Inspection Highlights.




Index status overview


This section tells you how many of your pages Google has indexed or excluded from its index. Pay attention to the number of pages that fall into the various status categories, as they can indicate whether pages have issues or don’t appear in search results, for example.




Indexation statuses include:


  • Valid — The page is indexed and can appear in search results. (This does not guarantee that it will appear in search results.)

  • Warning — Google may or may not have indexed this page depending on its specific warning status. This means that the page may not appear in search results.

  • Invalid — Google did not index this page due to an error on it.

  • Excluded — Google crawled this page, but decided not to index it.

  • Unspecified — Google doesn't currently have any information for this page.



As you plan your optimizations based on this information, it’s worth remembering that not all your pages should be available via search engines. “Thank you” pages and gated content, for example, may not provide value to users coming from the search results.




Top status details


The top status details provide additional context for the information in the index status overview (discussed above). Essentially, these are the reasons why pages couldn’t be indexed or haven’t yet been indexed.




Below are explanations of some of the status details you may see:


  • Submitted and indexed — You submitted the URL and Google has indexed it. It can appear in search results.

  • URL is unknown to Google — The URL has not yet been found by Google. This may be because it’s a new page or it has no links directing to it.

  • Crawled - currently not indexed — Google has crawled the page, but decided not to index it for search results at the moment (it may or may not be indexed in the future).

  • Discovered - currently not indexed — Google found the page, but decided not to crawl it for search results at the moment. This is usually because Google decided that crawling this page would overload your site and rescheduled crawling for a later time.

  • Indexed, not submitted in sitemap — Google indexed this page, even though it's not included in your site’s sitemap. It can appear in search results.



Mobile usability


This section provides an overview of how well your site pages work on mobile devices. While this does not specifically pertain to indexation, it does relate to mobile-friendliness, which is a Google ranking factor. Additionally, mobile-friendly sites make it easier for users to access content and convert.




Here is an explanation of the details listed in this section:


  • Valid — The page meets a minimum level for mobile usability and should work well on mobile devices. A page may still have some mobile usability issues even if it displays this status.

  • Issues — This indicates that a page has issues that will prevent it from working well on mobile devices.

  • Invalid — Google did not index this page due to an error on it. You may be able to request that Google index the page after you fix the error.

  • Unspecified — Pages for which Google currently has no information. This may be because Google couldn’t retrieve the page or test its mobile usability at the time of the report.



Within your Full Report section (more on that below), “No data” may also show as the mobile usability status of an individual page. This means that Google has not indexed the page and that it doesn’t have any information about the page’s mobile usability.




Full Report section


While the Highlights section presents information that’s useful for understanding the overall health of your site, the Full Report section provides page-level details, which can help you make specific fixes and optimisations.



In this section, you’ll see:


  • Page name

  • Type of page (e.g., Main Page, Blog Post, etc.)

  • Index status (e.g., Valid, Excluded)

  • Status details (e.g., Submitted and indexed, Unknown to Google, etc.)

  • Mobile usability status (e.g., Valid, Invalid, No data)

  • Rich results eligibility



You can learn more about an individual page’s status and details by selecting it in the Full Report. Doing so launches the page result information panel (shown below) for the associated page.



Here, you can review more details about a page’s coverage status, mobile usability, and rich results eligibility. The Learn more links direct you to the Site Inspection tool’s Wix Help Center page, where you can dig into specific statuses to correct errors that may be hindering your search visibility or mobile user experience.




Additionally, you can view the URL inspection report within GSC for the associated page by clicking on the Google Search Console link at the bottom of the panel. There, users with owner or full user access can request that Google crawl that particular URL.




Ways to use Site Inspection data


Site Inspection data can act as a portal into how Google sees your site, which is invaluable for troubleshooting and planning your optimizations. Below are a few scenarios where the Site Inspection tool may be particularly helpful.




Identify and troubleshoot content that hasn’t been indexed


The Full Report displays a list of your site’s URLs. You can scan the index status column to quickly identify pages that haven’t been indexed (these pages won’t be eligible to show in Google search results).




For pages that should be indexed, you can reference the status details (coverage) column to learn more about the page’s status. For example, a “Crawled - currently not indexed” status could indicate that Google thinks the content is thin or identical to content on another URL, while the “Unknown to Google” status likely means that Google has yet to discover the content.




Improve your mobile usability


In instances where a page shows an “Invalid” mobile usability status, the mobile usability section of that page’s result information panel may explicitly tell you why. This can enable you to quickly identify the issue and implement a fix.



Our Site Inspection Help Center page includes a detailed section about the various mobile usability statuses. For an even more comprehensive review of a page’s mobile-friendliness, paste the URL into Google's Mobile Friendly test tool.




Verify rich result eligibility


Rich results, which are generated via structured data markup, are search listings that contain information beyond the standard URL, page title, and description. Since they’re visually distinct from traditional results, they may make your listings stand out.



An example of an FAQ rich result.


The rich results column of the Full Report may indicate that your rich results are valid, the availability of optional fixes, or that there are issues preventing your rich results from rendering properly.


When an optional fix is shown, the rich result will still render. However, implementing the optional fixes suggested in the page’s result information panel may help you add more information to your rich results.



An “Issues” status indicates that the given page’s structured data is missing one or more required fields and will not render properly. Again, accessing the page result information panel can reveal more actionable details—in the example below, the missing field is explicitly highlighted.



When a rich result is valid, you can open up the page result information panel to view the type of rich result that page is eligible for.




The rich results section whether the structured data applied to a page is valid, along with the rich result type the page is eligible for.




Note: By default, Wix adds preset structured data markups to some of your site’s pages.




Before you get started with the Wix Site Inspection tool




To get the most out of this tool, it’s important to be aware of the requirements and limitations associated with it. When using the Wix Site Inspection tool, keep in mind:




  • The Site Inspection tool displays information about the most recently indexed version of your site. This may not be the same as the current, live version of your site, as it takes Google time to crawl and index site changes.

  • Google has a scan limit of 2000 pages per day—if you exceed this limit, you’ll need to wait 24 hours before you can scan your site again.

  • It may take some time for Google to index changes on your site. If you see issues in the report that you've already addressed, you can ask Google to recrawl your pages.



Evaluate your technical SEO with Wix’s built-in tools




The Site Inspection tool can open up a world of potential optimizations, but even so, there are likely other aspects of your site’s technical health to monitor and improve. For those concerned about Google’s ability to efficiently crawl their sites, Wix’s bot log reports are an excellent place to start.





5 views0 comments
bottom of page