Establish a universal canonical meta tag for advancing SEO

In instances where there exist various renditions of a page featuring replicated content, canonical meta tags (also identified as rel="canonical" tags) inform search engines about the primary or preferred webpage to exhibit in search findings. You have the ability to institute a global canonical meta tag to automatically produce canonical tags for each page within your website.

This instructional session will cover:

1. An overview of canonical meta tags
2. Guidance on setting a universal canonical meta tag

An overview of canonical meta tags

Canonical meta tags communicate to search engines that a particular URL symbolizes the leading or favored version of a webpage, thereby preventing diverse versions of the page from being considered as duplicate content. For instance, search engines might view the following as duplicate content:

• Varied URL structures (e.g., http versus https, www versus the root domain)
• URLs with appended parameters for filtering and ordering (e.g., https://university.webflow.com/docs versus https://university.webflow.com/docs?topics=seo)
• Multiple iterations of a page in different dialects of the same language (e.g., an Australian English version and a Canadian English version of a page)

Replicated content can result in SEO penalties and “keyword cannibalization,” where multiple pages contend for the same keywords, detrimentally impacting each other’s search rankings. Canonical meta tags prevent these issues by directing search engines to the designated version of your content that you desire to be displayed in search outcomes. They also merge ranking signals (e.g., backlinks) to the recommended version, focusing SEO efforts on one URL, thereby enhancing its likelihood of attaining higher rankings in search results.

Guidance on setting a universal canonical meta tag

By designating your website’s base URL (e.g., https://www.yourdomain.com) as the global canonical meta tag, that URL combines with each page’s distinct slug to generate canonical tags for all pages within your site.

The universal canonical meta tag URL should align with your website’s default domain. Nevertheless, if you are managing duplicated content across numerous domains or subdomains (e.g., via a reverse proxy configuration), you might need to define an alternative canonical URL.

Crucial Note: It is imperative to incorporate the HTTP/HTTPS protocol in your global canonical meta tag since search engines might construe variations as duplicated content (e.g., https://yourdomain.com differs from http://yourdomain.com). If your site’s default domain is configured with the www subdomain, you must also encompass the www URL prefix in your global canonical meta tag (e.g., https://www.yourdomain.com). It is advisable to omit the trailing slash at the conclusion of your URL; otherwise, the canonical URLs for all subpages on your site will contain dual slashes (e.g., //contact).

To initialize a universal canonical meta tag:

1. Access Site settings > SEO > Global canonical meta tag URL
2. Insert your website’s base URL (e.g., https://www.yourdomain.com)
3. Save the alterations

You must publish your site for the modifications to take effect.

Note: If you implant your site’s canonical tag through another tool (e.g., Google Tag Manager), refraining from establishing a universal canonical meta tag in Webflow is recommended. Doing so could lead to the creation of multiple canonical tags on your pages, potentially being disregarded by search engines.

Pro piece of advice:Ask Google to recrawl your site subsequent to defining a universal canonical meta tag for ensuring swift updates to search outcomes.