Digital Marketing and Web Design Articles - Get Knowledged

Canonical Tags and how to Use Them

What you'll learn:

  1. What a canonical tag is
  2. Why you need them
  3. Why they're valuable
  4. How to verify they are on your page
  5. How to use them

What is a canonical tag?

A canonical tag (aka as 'rel canonical' because of the html code that is used to add them) is a piece of code (it sounds more intimidating then it is I promise) that tells bots that crawl a specific URL that it is a replica of a master page.

canonical tag located inside head tag
Here is an example of a canonical tag in use, and you can see here exactly why it's known as a 'rel canonical' tag.

As you can see, the canonical tag is located inside the 'head' section our html. The 'head' section of the html code is the area where the code that typically goes unseen by a browser on your website but is still necessary in order to make the site function/be found/add scripts for different functions and so on. This area is especially important for SEO purposes because it typically consists of various things that are required to optimize your page for search engines. So the head area is where you put the meta title, meta description.

The Problem

We (humans) see every page of a website as a 'unique page', but when a bot crawls a URL they see our website differently. Bots see all variations of a URL as 'separate' pages. For example, even though this same page can be reached by using the different communication protocols (https, http) the bot sees these different communication protocols used in the URLs as totally different pages. So now you have bots crawling these two 'completely different' websites https://www.zeusforge.com and http://www.zeusforge.com, but it's seeing the exact same content on all pages, and this is where the problem occurs.

Making sense now? This is why it's necessary to use canonical tags. Because as far as the Google crawler is involved it's literally seeing two websites side by side that are the exact same copies of one another.

The Solution

Use canonical tags on each page to signal that it is the master copy of that content, and yes we even mean the home page. So, if your homepage or main url is 'http://www.zeusforgedemo.com' then your canonical tag would be as follows:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.zeusforgedemo.com/>

However, if you're command protocol was 'https' and not just 'http' then it would be the same thing except 'https' instead of just 'http.' Command protocols are not interchangeable unless you know you have the secure sockets protocol (or https). The command protocol https adds a secure socket layer (which is also called a SSL Certificate). Anwyays, just thought we'd mention that.

Verify The Solution

Now in order to verify that everything has worked as you intended, and once you add the canonical tags to each one of your pages, you can visually verify that your tags are there.

Do this using the steps below:

Step 1: Go to your website (or the one you want to verify), right click on it, and click 'view page source.'

screenshot of where 'view page source' is located in the menu after right clicking your web-page
This is a screenshot of where 'view page source' is located in the menu after right clicking on the website.

Step 2: Once you're at the 'view page source' page hit CTRL+ F and type 'canonical' and this should take you to where your canonical tag is and you should be able to verify that it matches up with the url being displayed in the top of your browser.

Step 3: If it doesn't match the URL at the top of your browser then just go back into your code and change it.

Dynamic websites that include a CMS (or content management system) can make this task more difficult than working with a static website because sometimes they put in their own tags to complete the URL.

Here is a copy of it so you can just replace the URL with your own. We thought it might be easier to be able to just copy and paste it rather than typing it.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.zeusforge.com/marketing-articles/>

Those are the essential steps. Now you need to make sure that your communication protocol match up (http or https), under most circumstances it's a fairly safe bet to just take the canonical tag and place it onto every individual page. Placing the tag on every page is a bit redundant, but having a little bit of redundancy is better than not having enough.

Get knowledged and read some of our articles.

Website Builder | Pros and Cons. How to choose which one is right for you

An easy to digest list of the pros and cons of website builders. Find out if a website builder is for you. Making this decision early can severely decrease the amount of work and money needed later on in your venture.

Click Me

Website Design for Beginners | The 5 Essentials you need to succeed

Here is a non-exhausted list of some essentials you're going to need to start making your own website. A huge part of web design and coding is research; so be prepared to do some of that too.

Click Me

10 Essentials for Killer Marketing That'll Set You Apart

Creating a marketing campaign is nice, but creating a marketing campaign that brings your brand to the forefront with personality can produce wildly better results.

Click Me

SEO | Basics Anyone Can and Should Do if They Want to Rank

Here are some simple SEO (search engine optimization) tactics and tips that anyone can do. In fact, if you don't do these you're throwing money away. Some may be more difficult than others, and some may require more research to be properly implemented.

Click Me

54,794 Painful Reasons to AVOID WordPress at all Costs

WordPress or Wix? 54,794 reasons to avoid ever using WordPress if you want your company to be taken seriously. This article will show you why only 15 year olds with cat blogs should use it.

Click Me

Canonical Tags and how to Use Them

Canonical tags can be tricky little devils. If you're much like the majority of people who are doing a 'DIY' website, this is something you'll need to know if you want to gain any rank in Google's eyes. However, don't fear, we're here show you what they are and how to use them to improve your SEO.

Click Me

Get FREE access to all of our articles (this is just some of them) and get notified when new articles come out. Along with news updates and rare access to discounts when we offer them.

Your trust is SACRED to us. We'll never share your info. EVER.
We've sent a confirmation email to your email address. Please find the email from" and confirm your subscription.

And welcome to the team.
~ Zeus Forge
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

You can instantly start dominating your competition right now. Reach out.


Reserve your space as soon as possible. We only accept a certain amount of clients at any one time in order to maintain the customer service our clients have grown to expect and love. So space is extremely limited. Contact us now to get a quote.

We respect your privacy and will never give your information to anyone.

Great News, we've got your submission :)
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.