What is a Canonical URL & Tag | Why Canonical URL is Important for Ranking and Crawling | OnPageSEO

A canonical URL is a URL for a duplicated page’s “main“ version, as determined by search engines such as Google. Google does not want to deliver duplicate search results or waste resources on pages with little distinctive value. When Google discovers duplicate (or nearly identical) pages on a website, it chooses a canonical URL to represent them all. This page is then prioritised during indexing and ranking. Consider the following two URLs: 1. Canonical URL: 2. URL Alternate: In this case, Google will most likely index and rank the canonical URL. The “principal,“ “primary,“ or “representative“ version is another name for the canonical page. A canonical tag, also known as the rel=“canonical“ tag, is a piece of HTML code that allows you to specify the “primary“ version in a collection of duplicate or near-duplicate pages on your site. Canonical tags in SE