Canonical Tag

The canonical tagThe canonical tag is an HTML link element that tells search engines the preferred (canonical) URL of a page. It helps consolidate duplicate or similar URLs onto a main version.Open glossary entry → is a link element in a page's <head>. It shows search engines which URL should be treated as the preferred main version of a piece of content.

Example:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.ch/produkt/" />

It is especially useful when the same content is reachable under several URLs, for example through parameters, sorting, filters or product variants. For Google the canonical is a strong signal but not an absolute command: Google may choose a different URL if other signals contradict it.

Best practices: use an absolute HTTPSHTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the protocol through which browsers and servers exchange web content. HTTPS is the encrypted, secure variant of this protocol.Open glossary entry → URL, point to a reachable 200 page, do not point to noindexnoindex is a robots directive telling search engines that a page should not appear in search results. The page must remain crawlable for it to work.Open glossary entry → or 404, output only one canonical per page, and avoid canonical chains. For important indexableIndexing is the step in which a search engine processes crawled content and decides whether a URL is added to the search index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results.Open glossary entry → pages a self-referencing canonical is best practice. Internal linksInternal linking refers to links that connect pages within the same website. They control how search engines and users find and thematically classify content.Open glossary entry →, sitemapAn XML sitemap is a machine-readable file listing a website's important URLs. It helps search engines discover content more efficiently but does not replace internal linking or guarantee indexing.Open glossary entry → and hreflanghreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines the language and region of a page. It links language or regional variants of the same content to one another.Open glossary entry → should consistently support the same canonical URL.