Glossary · Technical
Canonical tag.
A line in a page's head declaring which address is the official one for that content, so that the same page reachable at several URLs is not treated as several competing pages.
Why it matters.
Most small sites need only a self-referencing canonical on every page. It matters most where a site is reachable with and without www, over both http and https, or with tracking parameters attached. Getting it wrong — pointing every page at the home page, for instance — is one of the few technical mistakes that can remove a whole site from results.
How to check it yourself.
Open your site with www and without, and with https and http. If all four load and none redirects, the canonical tag is the only thing holding the site together — check it exists on every page.
Questions
Before you ask.
How do I check canonical tag on my own site?
Open your site with www and without, and with https and http. If all four load and none redirects, the canonical tag is the only thing holding the site together — check it exists on every page.
Two minutes
Where does your
own site land?
Everything above came from opening real websites. Yours takes ten seconds: we load it the way a customer would and say what we find, including when the honest answer is that nothing needs doing.
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conversation?
No pitch deck and no discovery call. Tell us the trade and the city, and we will say what we would do and what it costs.