Are you ready to get techy? This is a new subject for lots of people - it’s even bordering on nerdy for us - but we promise it’s worth getting to know your way around canonical URLs to:

Improve your website’s SEO
Make sure any duplicated content on your website is serving you well
Learn about a new SEO skill
An opportunity to guide Google on how to use your website

So, here goes…

What is a canonical URL?

On your website you will probably find that there are some pages that are very similar to each other. They might not be exact duplicates, but it’s likely that you have some of the same content appearing in multiple places across your website.

A canonical URL is a URL that Google acknowledges as the ‘original’ version of a group of duplicated, or very similar, pages. It’s the one that Google lists on search results pages as the ‘main’ version of the pages with repeated content on your site.

Okay, so why does this matter?

Why do you need canonical URLs?

Too much duplicate content damages your chances of appearing high in search rankings.

Google (and other search engines) look to prioritise websites with unique and different content. Content that will add value to those searching for it. If you’ve got too much of the same thing it looks like you’re repeating yourself, and you’ve got nothing new to add.

But, duplicated content happens! There are many reasons why you might have duplicate content on your site. Sometimes you don’t even realise it’s there. In fact, according to Google’s experts, 60% of the content on the internet is duplicate, which just proves how many website owners aren’t aware of the duplicate content on their sites.

Thankfully, you can tell Google which page to prioritise and it will ‘technically’ ignore the duplications. The key to getting Google to prioritise one of your web pages with duplicate content is (you guessed it) canonical URLs.

Thankfully, canonical URLs are something that you can set up yourself when you are building and maintaining your website.

Want to know how?

Setting up canonical URLs

First, if you don’t even know where to start you can get in touch with us at Wild SEO Agency to carry out an SEO audit on your website. We can help you identify duplicated content on pages and work out which pages you want to create canonical URLs for.

To set up and identify a canonical URL you have to add a ‘canonical tag’ in the chosen page’s HTML code. You simply add the tag to the <head> section of your page. It’s that easy!

You might find that your CMS (content management system) makes it even easier and you can add canonical tags without even having to go into the background HTML and get acquainted with coding. Winner.

If playing about with code isn’t for you, then you’re in luck: Wild SEO Agency can help you out.

Get in touch and let’s talk technical SEO, to help your site work better, rank higher in the search results and serve you the best it possibly can!

Let's talk tech