What is canonical and how should you leverage it for your project's SEO?
If I now ask you what the Rel=canonical tag is, would you know how to tell me what it is? If you're new to the SEO world, or this concern has arisen through your online business, it's completely normal.
In this blog, I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about the canonical tag, about how it can affect your business and what you should do for it to help you improve your SEO.
But, what is a canonical? What's the point for SEO?
The canonical tag is a tag used for web ranking, especially when we talk about digital businesses. This tag is the way you confirm to Google's crawling robots what the main URL or link is, or in other words, a canonical URL.
A clear example would be if within your E-commerce you have a product page from which others derive but differ, for example, by a different color, this would look like:
"Porcelain plate fh3252"
"Gray porcelain plate odgwdh34"
"Blue porcelain plate odhjdg53"
And so on with each color, the canonical tag in this case would serve to tell Google's bots that "Porcelain plate fh3252" is the main product, and that the other products hang from this one; in short, "Porcelain plate fh3252" would be the canonical URL.
At an SEO level, we'll be preventing our website from having duplicates, something that, if you didn't know, Google chases and penalizes through Google Panda, the tool in charge of locating these duplicates; that's why Canonical SEO is so relevant.
You have to be careful because a poorly placed canonical can negatively influence your website's SEO ranking, that's why we recommend you leave it in the hands of experts.
Contact us and we'll help you with whatever you need :)
Canonical URL - What is a canonical URL?
It is, in summary, the URL that is most representative for Google within your project, since we can have duplicates or underdeveloped ones. The canonical URL must always be the one that is best developed, the most complete, so Google indexes and crawls it more frequently through its robots. Google can choose which is the canonical URL using the criteria I explained earlier, but you can choose by hand through the canonical tag (Rel=Canonical) which is the one you want Google's search engine to crawl often with its spider robot. The canonical url, in the end, is an intelligent option of using Google's algorithm in our favor.
Now that you know what a canonical URL is, it's time to keep learning about this.
Canonical tag: How should I use it if I want to optimize my project's SEO?
In the end, the Rel=Canonical tag is code you can insert into your website theme's html. In case your web projects are hosted on the Wordpress CMS, you have to keep in mind that with each theme change, you'll lose all the tags you've put there, so you'll need to be alert every time you make a change.
The canonical tag must always be placed in the head and never in the Body, why? Because Google will only detect it in the Head, so if you didn't see changes after placing this tag, review your project, because you may have put the tag in the wrong place.
Which is better: The canonical tag or a redirect?
This is something many people ask themselves, and the truth is they're right to ask. But, as with everything in life, there's no fixed answer, the answer here would be: it depends on what you need.
I have it clear there are two moments when you should know how to use one strategy or the other, and everything will depend on why your content is being duplicated:
- If there are large variations in product pages, it's better to use the canonical tag.
- If what you want is for them to be seen in both versions (with or without www), then the best you can do is use the 301 redirect.
The 301 redirect has a lot of potential, since with it we're making it clear to Google what we want it to index, and also what we don't want it to index. It also serves to redirect authority and strength to other canonical URLs.
Regarding the canonical tag, it's best to use it only when absolutely necessary, and consequently, when you can't use a 301 redirect.
How should you use the canonical tag or rel canonical tag in your online project? - Canonical SEO
Next, I'm going to point out some moments when you should use the canonical tag that will help you achieve great results:
- When there's a variation in the product: In this case, all pages generated from the original product must depend on the canonical URL, and not be an original page. In other words, they must reference their canonical website or canonical URL, in this case, the main product page.
- Designate filters: It's normal for users to want to filter your products by sizes, colors, dimensions or styles. In online stores, it's a good option to use a canonical SEO tag so Google understands that, even though these filters aren't indexed (Or yes, that depends), it knows what's happening.
The most common mistakes using the canonical tag
We can all be wrong, even an SEO professional can fall into errors like the ones I'll comment on below:
- Canonical tag pointing to the home: One of the biggest mistakes that can be made in this profession. Although not common among professionals, an erroneous strategy is for each and every page and URL of the website to point to the home, believing that this gives it greater authority. This is a fatal mistake, because in this case, it's not about authority, but about content hierarchy.
- 404 errors: When there's a 404 error on your page, don't use a Rel=canonical tag; in this case, you must always do a redirect, because in this case, the clicked URL doesn't exist, and you must redirect it to the new destination or a related page.
- Paginations: A common mistake in these cases is to use the canonical tag so the pages point to the first one. This way, we get Google to ignore everything else and it's a complete mistake. In these cases, you should use the "Rel=prev" and "Rel=Next" tags.
- Web migration: Another of the barbarities is using a canonical tag when doing a web migration. Something Google itself has officially said shouldn't be done between domains. As I commented above, a 301 redirect must be done, which has more power in situations like this.
The importance of canonical SEO
Canonical SEO, through the use of the canonical tag, is ideal to avoid URL duplication. It's important to lay the foundations of this strategy, before it's too late; having canonical SEO is something very important, and you should let a professional from an SEO agency help you; at FullSEO we're experts in web ranking, but also in canonical SEO. Leave your project in the right hands, get in contact with us.
Related reading
- How to index your website on Google
- Ranking on Google: technique, content and authority
- Best SEO agency: real criteria
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If you want to apply this in your company with a team that combines technical SEO, GEO and paid acquisition measured against the income statement, request a no-commitment audit. You can also check real case studies or read the public GEO baselines that Elevam Labs publishes every quarter.
