What is a canonical?

Short answer

A canonical is a small piece of code that tells Google which version of a page is the real one. This stops Google from seeing duplicate pages.

Sometimes the same page can be reached through several addresses. With and without www or with something extra at the end of the address. For Google those are separate pages with the same content.

With a canonical you point to the right version. Google then adds everything up to that one page. Google may still choose another one if your signals contradict each other.

Do not block pages with a canonical in robots.txt. Then Google cannot read the canonical.

Real-life example

A webshop has the same shoe in three colours on three addresses. With a canonical to the main page Google counts them as one page.

How we help with this

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