What is a canonical tag and why is it important?

If you’re wondering what a canonical tag is and why it’s important for your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts, read on to find out.

What is a canonical tag?

A canonical tag is a piece of code in the back end of your website that tells search engines that a particular page is the main page for a piece of content. This then help search engines to understand what content to rank and what not to rank in search results.

Canonical tags can be useful when you have pages with similar pieces of content and you want to tell search engines which page is the one you want ranked and shown in search results.

Example of where you should use canonical tags

A good example of using canonical tags is when you have the same content on different URLs. For example, if you have a retail site that sells dresses, you may have a red dress product. This could be in the sub-product category of “red dresses”, but it may also appear under “summer dresses” and “mini dresses”. As the product appears in multiple sub-product categories, your site may have multiple URLs containing the same content about the red dress. In this instance, setting one of these URLs as the main piece of content with a canonical tag will stop any search engines flagging up duplicate content.

How can you implement canonical tags on your website?

If your website is built on a content management system (CMS), then there may be a plugin you can add to help you optimise your meta titles, meta descriptions, and the canonical tag. For example, if your website is built on WordPress, you may use Yoast SEO, Rank Math SEO or All-in-one SEO – all these plugins have functionality that will enable you to add canonical tags to your pages.

To conclude, to help make sure that your website has no duplicate internal content, make sure you’re using canonical tags, so that you can help search engines understand what pieces of content from your site to show in search results.

If you’re looking to grow your business online in 2022 and beyond, and you’re unsure of what digital marketing channels to use, please get in touch with our friendly team at Engage Web today. We can develop a digital marketing strategy to help you reach your business goals.

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Jonathon Roberts

Jonathon lives and breathes marketing, boasting a degree in Business Management and Marketing Management and a diverse list of experiences both professional and voluntary. Having grown up in the thick of the digital and social media age, he has been quick to dive into online marketing and search engine optimisation in his career and spare time, spanning such fields as academics, local business and sport.

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