A canonical tag is a signal in a web page that prevents duplicate content issues. HTML code is added into the header of a page and helps prevent duplicate content issues by telling Google and other search engines’ BOT the preferred version of a page.
What are Canonical Issues in SEO?
Canonical issues occur when a site is having more than 1 page that has similar content. For an instance, a site load homepage for all of the following URLs:
https://www.troology.com
http://www.troology.com
https://troology.com
http://troology.com
The exact same page displays for each of those URLs, but because each has a different URL, Google shall understand that these are 4 different pages. This creates a duplicate content problem, which is the actual concept of a canonical issue for SEO.
There are few Common Causes of Canonical Issues?
HTTPS vs. HTTP: If the site is secured by an SSL certificate, then it’s possible that it loads when typing in both the HTTPS and HTTP versions of the URL. It means that this will create a duplicate of every single page of our website for which it is required to define canonical code in the backend.
WWW vs. non-WWW: If we have not mentioned the correct version of the page, then our website will not load without www
How to solve Canonical Issues?
There are 2 ways to fix canonical issues on our website:
The first one is by implementing 301 redirects, and the second one is by adding canonical tags to your site’s pages to tell Google crawlers which of several similar pages is preferred.
1-Implement 301 Redirects for Duplicate Pages
HTTP/HTTPS and WWW/non-WWW canonical issues can be fixed by implementing a 301 redirect to the correct version of our page.
2- Add Canonical Tags in Site’s Pages
As it has been mentioned earlier that Google decides which of your websites’ duplicate pages should be the canonical page, we can specify which page we would like to be considered as canonical by adding a rel=canonical tag to a head section of our website.
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://troology.com”>
It is important to know that why is rel=canonical good for SEO?
Simple. Duplicate content that confuses search engines. When search engines like Google look at multiple pages with the same content then they:
• Don’t know what to index
• Don’t know which pages to rank
A rel=canonical tag clarifies this, and helps search engine crawlers to understand the content, prevents them from ignoring the page, & improves the ranking of the page in Google SERP.
When Do We Syndicate Our Blog Content?
One of the best marketing strategies might include syndicating our existing content on third-party websites. Blog syndication helps a brand to expand their brand awareness & gets organic traffic for their site. That is why syndicated content means words are now being spread all across the internet on multiple third-party sites.
Without canonical URLs, the search crawlers might not know which content came first and to whom to give priority. But nowadays, many blogs that syndicate content know how to set up a canonical URL so they don’t compromise the SEO or search authority of the brands they work with.
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Are you looking for a detailed SEO analysis of your website & creating multiple syndications of your blog? Please feel free to write us at info@troology.com
