We will go over what is a Canonical URL tag, and why does your website need's it for SEO so you can better understand what it is and if your website is protected as we all want to keep google happy.

Let’s Imagine for a Sec

You are installing a kitchen sink on your own, but because you're new at installing the kitchen sink, and because you didn't read the instructions (you’re not aware that you need to install that gasket) so you add everything else but the gasket. Then you turn the water on and then you realize water is leaking out of the drain…

This could have been resolved if you only read the instructions, or had someone install it for you.

But since you decided to install the sink on your own, without any prior knowledge, because you're not a plumber, unfortunately, this happened.

As a homeowner, it is important when doing any major repairs such as plumbing in your home to read through the instructions, so you can prevent any mayhem, right?

It’s no different with our websites, and since we are not paying someone to build our websites for us, we are actually building out our websites ourselves there's a very good chance your website just might not be running canonical URL tags…

Because we are all still learning. Thus is why I decided to create this short tutorial on what is a canonical URL tag and why your website needs it.

What is a Canonical Url Tag?

In a Nutshell, Its tag that googles created that google put there so that google knows exactly what your website name is, it prevents duplicate content on your website, so google doesn’t penalize you for duplicate content. People have been penalized for up to $6,000 from google because they didn't’ have canonical URL tags. That's crazy!

So that is why it’s important to make sure your website is protected, and why every website needs to make sure they are using Canonical URL tag.

Why does your website need to use a Canonical URL Tag?

Let’s say you use the same article from your website, but you want to create a new post or page with new re-advised content from the old content.

In the eyes of google, if you don’t have a canonical URL tag and you have links pointing to an old post and newer updated post with same content, google will see it as duplicated content, and your post will start competing with each other, and google will try to index both.

Because it's the same content google won't rank those post and will slap you with a duplicate content. So it’s best to make sure you let google know the real version, so make sure to tell google with a canonical URL tag that, so you don’t upset google and get slapped.

Here's a great article that I found on Moz explaining exactly what it is in detail if you would like to learn more about it, click the link below the image.

Source:https://moz.com/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

There are tools you can use like

• Yoast
• All and one SEO

Is your website using Canonical URL Tag?

If you’re not sure if your website is already using Canonical URL tag, you can do a quick test right now to see if your website already has it.

All you need to do to see if you are using a canonical URL tag is to hit CTRL-U this will bring up your source page then hit CTRL-F and type in Canon then look for this line below

This is what it looks like

< link rel = ”canonical” href =”http://www.website.com /” >

If your website isn't using canonical URL tag then make sure to check your All in one SEO settings as shown in the video.

If you have any questions or need help with checking to see if your website is using Canonical URL tag or not, feel free to ask me I am more than happy to help.

Cheers

~Jennifer