Fix Guide

How to Add a Canonical Tag

Tell Google which URL is the master copy so duplicate URLs don't split your ranking signals.

Medium High Impact 15 min

Why It Matters

The same content is often reachable at several URLs (with/without www, trailing slash, tracking parameters). Without a canonical tag, Google may split ranking signals across them or index the wrong one. The canonical consolidates everything to your preferred URL.

How to Fix

Pick the preferred URL

Decide the single clean URL for each page (https, your chosen www/non-www, no tracking params).

Add a self-referencing canonical

Add <link rel="canonical"> pointing to that absolute URL in the <head> of every page — including the page pointing to itself.

Code Fix

html

Before (broken)

<head>
  <!-- no canonical; /page, /page/, /page?ref=x all indexable -->
</head>

After (fixed)

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page">

Platform-Specific Instructions

WordPress

Yoast/Rank Math output self-referencing canonicals automatically; override per-page when content is syndicated.

Next.js

Set alternates.canonical in the page metadata.

Check with our tool

Canonical Tag Checker

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