A How question

How does an SEO company handle canonical tags?

3 min read Cites 2 sources

By placing a canonical link on every indexable page that names the address it should be known by, written correctly, and by making sure the rest of the site agrees with it. A canonical link tells Google which URL you prefer when the same or very similar content is reachable at several addresses. Google treats it as a strong signal, not a command, so the company’s work covers the tag itself, the special cases such as paginated lists and PDF files, and the internal links, sitemaps, and redirects that either support or contradict it.

Writing the tag correctly

The canonical link goes in the head section of the page’s HTML. Google’s guide to specifying a canonical URL recommends absolute addresses rather than relative ones: “Even though relative paths are supported by Google, they can cause problems in the long run (for example, if you unintentionally allow your testing site to be crawled) and thus we don’t recommend them.” It also advises including a canonical link on the canonical page itself, pointing to its own address, and not naming a URL fragment, the part after a # sign, as canonical, because Google generally does not support fragments.

A company sets this up in templates or the content management system so every indexable page gets a correct self-referencing canonical automatically, then checks the output on a sample of each page type, because a template error repeats across every page built from it.

Files that are not web pages

Some content is not HTML, such as PDF files. The same guide explains that for these, a canonical can be sent as an HTTP header in the server’s response instead of a link in the page, which Google supports for web search results. If the same document exists as a web page and a PDF, or as PDFs on several addresses, this is how the company tells Google which one to treat as primary.

Paginated lists

Google’s guide to pagination is direct about lists that span several pages: “Don’t use the first page of a paginated sequence as the canonical page. Instead, give each page its own canonical URL.” Pointing every page to page one can hide the items on later pages. The same guide notes that Google no longer uses the rel next and rel prev link elements to understand page sequences, so a company should not rely on them, though other search engines may still use them.

Keeping the signals in line

A canonical link that contradicts the rest of the site can be overruled. Internal links should point to the canonical address, the sitemap should list only canonical addresses, and duplicates that do not need to exist should redirect. The company also watches for the mistakes that undo canonicalization: distinct pages pointed at the homepage, canonicals pointing to addresses that redirect or return errors, canonicals on pages blocked by robots.txt, and a page marked noindex while also being named as canonical. After changes, the company uses URL Inspection to compare the canonical you declared with the one Google selected, and investigates any page where they differ.

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