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Canonical Checker

Check a page’s canonical tag, then follow it: does the URL it names load, stay indexable, and point back at itself?

No sign-up. We read the live page for you. Nothing is stored.

Updated

For example:

Reads the canonical tag and the Link header, then checks the URL it points to.

In the output

What you get

  • The canonical, from the tag and the header
  • Whether it points to itself or elsewhere
  • Whether the canonical URL loads and is indexable
  • Loops, chains and homepage canonicals
  • The canonical in the HTML <link> tag and in the HTTP Link header, and whether there is exactly one or they disagree.
  • Whether it points to the page itself, another page, the homepage or another domain, and what that asks Google to do.
  • That the canonical URL loads directly with a 200, without redirects, and is not noindexed.
  • Chains and loops, where the canonical URL names yet another page, or names this page back.
Three steps

How to use the Canonical Checker

1

Enter the page URL

Include the parameters or variant you are worried about; the canonical should name the clean version.

2

Read where it points

Self-referencing is right for a page you want indexed as itself. Elsewhere is right only for duplicates.

3

Fix the template, not the page

Canonicals come from themes and SEO plugins. Fix the setting that writes them and every page follows.

Why it matters

Why a canonical can be present and still wrong

It is a hint, not a command.

Google follows a canonical when the signals agree. One that points at a redirect, an error or a noindexed page is ignored, and Google picks a URL itself.

Two canonicals cancel out.

A theme and an SEO plugin each writing one, or a tag and a header that disagree, and Google discards both.

The homepage trap.

A plugin default that canonicalises every page to the homepage asks Google to drop all of them.

Parameters multiply URLs.

Tracking parameters, sort orders and trailing slashes create copies of each page. A self-referencing canonical tells Google which one is real.

After you run it

What to do with the result

Canonical problems rarely come from a decision: they come from a plugin default, a theme and a plugin both writing one, or a migration that left canonicals pointing at old URLs. They show up as the wrong page ranking, or none. Site Audit checks every canonical it crawls, including the ones pointing at redirects and errors, so a template fault is fixed once.

Site Audit

Frequently asked questions

A <link rel="canonical" href="…"> in a page’s head that names the preferred URL for its content. Google uses it as a strong hint about which of several duplicate URLs to index and show.

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