Canonical URL

A canonical URL is the address you name as the real one when the same page can be reached in several ways. It is written as one short line inside the page code. Think of it as a note pinned to every copy saying that the master lives over here. Search engines are not forced to obey it, but most of the time they do.

Shop owners are usually surprised by how many addresses one product page collects. Sort the list by price and you get a new address. Filter by colour and you get another. Add a tracking code from a newsletter or an advert and you get another again. Then there is the print view, the mobile view, and an old session number left behind by last year software. One pair of shoes can quietly sit behind forty links that all show the same photo and the same price.

This matters because a search engine has to pick one of those addresses to show. Say nothing and it picks for you, and it sometimes picks the version with a tracking code stuck on the end. Visitors then share that untidy link, and the attention that should have gathered on one page is spread thin across many. A canonical tag ends the argument. Every copy points at the plain address, and the plain address is the one people see.

The rules are less fussy than people fear. Give every page a canonical tag, even a page with no copies, and let it point at itself. Write the full address with https and the domain name. Point it at a page that really loads, never at a redirect or a missing page. And keep it honest, because a canonical tag is a strong hint about copies, not a way to hide a page you would rather nobody saw.

This is one of the first checks Linkysoft runs on an online shop, because it is cheap to fix and expensive to leave. Storek gives every product one clean address and keeps filters and tracking codes out of it. If your shop was built years ago and every filter creates a fresh address, a Linkysoft website rebuild is usually cheaper than trying to patch it.