A wrong canonical can quietly deindex pages or split your ranking signals. Check your homepage's canonical instantly — no signup — then crawl every page.
Instant, free, no account needed — homepage checked on the spot.
The instant check reads your homepage's canonical. A full crawl checks every page's canonical against the rules below.
Every indexable page should declare a rel="canonical".
The canonical should point to the page's own clean URL unless you intend otherwise.
The canonical target must be a live page — not a redirect or a 404.
Flags canonicals that point at a URL which then redirects — a wasted signal.
Canonicals should use https, not leftover http after a migration.
A full audit tracks pages whose canonical changed between crawls.
Canonicalisation is subtle but high-impact — these are the rules that keep your ranking signals where they belong.
On every indexable page, add <link rel="canonical" href="THIS-PAGE-CLEAN-URL"> pointing to its own URL. This is the safe default and stops search engines guessing which of several similar URLs to index.
The URL in your canonical must be live and canonical itself — not a redirect, not a 404. A canonical pointing at a redirected URL is ignored, and Google picks its own. Re-check after any HTTP→HTTPS or trailing-slash change.
A common template bug: every page in a paginated series canonicalises back to page 1, which deindexes pages 2+. Each paginated page should self-reference (or use proper pagination handling), not point to page 1.
Your canonical, your hreflang annotations, and the URLs you link internally should all point at the same canonical version. Mixed signals (linking to one URL but canonicalising to another) confuse crawlers.
Canonical is a hint for consolidating duplicates — it is not a way to deindex a page (use noindex for that) or to block crawling (use robots.txt). Use the right tool for each job.
A rel="canonical" tag tells search engines which URL is the preferred version when similar content exists at multiple URLs. It consolidates ranking signals onto one URL and prevents duplicate-content dilution.
Yes — a self-referencing canonical on every indexable page is the safe default, unless you deliberately want a page consolidated into another.
When a canonical points at a URL that redirects or 404s. Google ignores it and picks its own canonical, wasting your signal. Every canonical must resolve to a live 200 URL.
Yes. The instant check reads your homepage; run a full audit to check every page's canonical for self-reference, redirects and changes over time.
Free to start. Crawl your site and catch every canonical mistake.
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