technical
Intermediate
Canonical URL
/kəˈnɒnɪkəl juːˈɑːrˈɛl/
The preferred version of a web page that search engines should index and display in search results.
Detailed Explanation
Canonical URLs help prevent duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page is the "master" or preferred version. This is especially important for e-commerce sites with multiple URLs for the same product or sites with both HTTP and HTTPS versions.
Examples
Using rel="canonical" in HTML head
Setting canonical URLs in XML sitemaps
Canonical tags for product variations
Related Terms
Terms That Reference This
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