Check this presentation that explains how you can resolve the cannonical issue from your website and save its reach and rankings on Search engines.
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2. What is Canonical in Website or SEO?
Most Important canonical is not an issue, but it’s a term which means
the “preferred one”.
When a website generates the multiple URL addresses for same page and
displays the same content on the page then it would be counted as the
canonical issue within the website.
If same content on the website is accessible with different URLs then it is
considered as bad for Search Engine Optimization because the links which
need to be directed to the single page is get divided into the multiple URLs
and hence it splits the popularity of that page or Website.
3. we have a website www.example.com:
There are four versions of the same page available on different URLs
http://www.example.com/
http://example.com/
http://www.example.com/index.php (or .html)
http://example.com/index.php (or .html)
The content on each URL is same. And in this way links would be pointed
to different URLs instead of single homepage URL, which will result in
giving links credit from Search Engines to individual pages, which will not
be combined to one URL address only. Which is called as Canonical Issue
Example to understand the most common
canonical issues
4. Solution to overcome canonical issue
301 redirection (also know as Permanent
Redirection) by directly editing the .htaccess
file on Apache Server.
Placing Canonical tag (rel=canonical) in
webPages of websites
5. Solving canonical issue by 301 redirection via
.htacces file
1. Open your .htaccess file.
2. If you have existing codes in your .htaccess file, then add the below code
just below of existing codes. It is the most common code which can be used
to redirect all the URLs to the single URL address only (applicable with
Apache Server only)
6. What Are Canonical Tags And Why Use Them?
Here is an example of canonical tag(“the preferred one”):
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/bamboosheets”>
This code needs to be added on to the duplicate pages or the generating
URLs like
7. Canonical tags are used to highlight canonical URL
One must set the canonical tag to the simplest URL
Canonical tag are part of the HTML header on a web page and are similar
as nofollow. The only difference is the use of “rel parameter”
For paginated content, always use rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags.
Canonical URL is the purest version of all the URLs in the group.
Important Points of Canonical Tags :
8. What Google Suggest for Canonical Issues?
Google suggests number of ways to define a canonical URL for content (or
equivalent content) available through multiple URLs:
Set your preferred domain
Indicate the preferred URL with the rel=”canonical” link element
Use a sitemap to set preferred URLs for the same content
Use 301 redirects for URLs that are not canonical
Indicate how to handle dynamic parameters
Specify a canonical link in your HTTP header
Prefer HTTPS over HTTP for canonical links
9. It is highly recommended to make sure that your website URLs are
organised and redirected appropriately.
You must choose one canonical URL that all other URLs will be
redirected to (either by 301 or rel=canonical tag).
And also, make sure to set the canonical tag before the
search engines decide that your website is created to
deceive them.
Canonical tags are great ways of avoiding penalties for duplicate
content.
AWord of Caution