Canonical Tags and How to Use Them

Canonical tags often stir up anxiety and confusion amongst non-technical webmasters and website owners. There is a lot of apprehension around the use of these tags. At Nhance Digital, we have realised that a lot of people steer clear of these tags for fear of messing up the existing link systems. We want to help you understand the true benefits of canonical tags and how you can use them.

Let us start by telling you what are canonical tags. The term basically revolves around preferred and duplicate content. The work of canonical tags is to help search engines recognise and identify duplicate content as they relate to an original page. Additionally, a canonical tag helps search engines understand which page should be displayed in the SERPs. When dealing with two pages that have very similar or duplicate content, adding a canonical tag tells the search engine which one is the original copy and which one is the clone. Simply put, a canonical tag will help in driving all the SEO juice and traffic to the original page.

How can you use canonical tags?

Our SEO professionals find canonical tags to be most helpful when used in the following scenarios:

• Separating original and duplicate content so that search engines are able to focus only on the main content
• Allowing search engines to differentiate between similar or close-to-original content and focusing only on the original product page, which is the case with ecommerce websites

When it comes to optimising your website for the search engines, it is important to use canonical tags. This is because duplicate content can negatively impact the way your pages have been indexed and ranked. Also, duplicate content affects the relevancy of search results, and eventually, your website traffic and the bottom line. You can improve the overall visibility and search ranking of your website by using this tag.

So, do you need help determining if your company’s website can gain from canonical tags? You can reach out to NHANCE Digital and avail our online marketing SEO services in Birmingham. Our team of SEO experts will work with you to determine the best strategy to implement this tag and improve the overall performance of your website.

For any more information on canonical tags, contact us. Our friendly team is always eager to clear doubts and answer questions. We also provide obligation-free quotes.