What is a canonical tag?
The canonical tag is a piece of code that you add to the HTML of a Web page to tell search engines like Google which version of a page is the "original" or "preferred" version. This is especially useful when you have multiple pages on your Web site that are very similar or even have exactly the same content. In fact, search engines don't like to show the same content multiple times in their search results because it can be confusing for users. By adding a canonical tag, you indicate which page should be seen as the most important and prevent search engines from getting confused.
The canonical tag is especially relevant when there is duplicate content, or in other words, when the same or very similar content appears on different URLs. Imagine you sell a product that is available in multiple colors, and you have separate pages for each color. The content on these pages is almost identical, except that the color of the product is different. Without a canonical tag, Google might think it is duplicate content (duplicate content), which can lead to lower rankings in search results. By adding a canonical tag to these pages, you can indicate which version Google should consider the most important. This helps the right page appear higher in search results.
Another example of using the canonical tag is in pagination, for example on a blog or an online store with multiple pages full of products. If you have a long list of products or articles spread across multiple pages, these pages may contain a lot of the same content, such as headers or filters. By using a canonical tag, you can make it clear which page Google should see as the main version. In addition, it is good to know that the canonical tag is a page-specific instruction for search engines, similar to how the robots tag works. Where the robots tag indicates whether or not a page should be indexed, the canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page to follow and rank. This ensures that your Web site remains clear and uncluttered for both users and search engines.
