--- title: "What is canonical tag in SEO ?" description: "What is canonical tag in SEO ?" author: "Rahul Roi" published: 2020-11-16 canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/interview/33755/what-is-canonical-tag-in-seo category: "digital marketing" tags: ["html", "seo"] reading_time: 2 minutes --- # What is canonical tag in SEO ? A canonical URL is also known as a canonical tag. The canonical tag (rel=“canonical”) is a snippet of HTML code that defines the main version for duplicate, near-duplicate and similar pages. Into other words, if you have the same or similar content available under different URLs, you can use canonical tags to specify which version is the main one and thus, should be indexed. The canonical tags use simple and consistent syntax, and are placed within the section of a web page: ## Here’s what each part of that code means in plain English: #### ##### 1. link rel=“canonical”: The link in this tag is the master (canonical) version of this page. ##### 2. href=“https://example.com/sample-page/”: The canonical version can be found at this URL. #### [Canonical tags important for SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/consolidate-duplicate-urls?hl=en&visit_id=637411267280397379-3007937674&rd=1) Where the Google doesn’t like duplicate content. That makes it very harder for them to choose: - Which version of a page to index (they’ll only index one!) - Which version of a page to rank for relevant queries. - Whether they should consolidate “link equity” on one page or split it between multiple versions. ## Answers ### Answer by Rahul Roi A canonical URL is also known as a canonical tag. The canonical tag (rel=“canonical”) is a snippet of HTML code that defines the main version for duplicate, near-duplicate and similar pages. Into other words, if you have the same or similar content available under different URLs, you can use canonical tags to specify which version is the main one and thus, should be indexed. The canonical tags use simple and consistent syntax, and are placed within the section of a web page: ## Here’s what each part of that code means in plain English: #### ##### 1. link rel=“canonical”: The link in this tag is the master (canonical) version of this page. ##### 2. href=“https://example.com/sample-page/”: The canonical version can be found at this URL. #### [Canonical tags important for SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/consolidate-duplicate-urls?hl=en&visit_id=637411267280397379-3007937674&rd=1) Where the Google doesn’t like duplicate content. That makes it very harder for them to choose: - Which version of a page to index (they’ll only index one!) - Which version of a page to rank for relevant queries. - Whether they should consolidate “link equity” on one page or split it between multiple versions. --- Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/interview/33755/what-is-canonical-tag-in-seo Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.