What is canonical in seo?

Answer 1

A 301 redirect is designed to help users and search engines find pieces of content that have moved to a new URL.

You usually want to use a 301 redirect over a canonical tag. A rel=canonical tag is a bit easier to implement as it doesn't involve doing anything server side. Its just a case of editing the tag on a page.

Only use a canonical instead of a 301 if:

• A 301 is not possible
• There are multiple ways to navigate to the page
• When dynamic URLs are used.

Answer 2

In SEO, "canonical" refers to the preferred version of a webpage, especially when there are multiple URLs leading to similar content. The canonical tag is used to designate the primary URL that search engines should consider for indexing and ranking, preventing duplicate content issues. This ensures that search engines understand the authoritative source of the content, consolidating its ranking signals to the chosen canonical URL. Proper canonicalization is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your website's SEO and improving the accuracy of search engine results.

Answer 3

In SEO, a canonical tag is an HTML element that helps prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a webpage when multiple URLs contain the same or similar content. This tag tells search engines which URL to index and rank, ensuring that link equity is consolidated and search rankings are not diluted. The canonical tag is placed in the section of a webpage and looks like this:

Using canonical tags effectively helps improve SEO performance by guiding search engines to the most important pages on your site.