[IMP] Adding HTTPS Canonical URL In WordPress/Blogger To Resolve Duplicate Content Issue

Vinayak SP

27/07/2023

The first thing you need to understand is what does canonical link means. The canonical URL or link is an HTML element and used to let the search engine know about which is the original URL amongst all of the variants of your website links available over the internet. All top brands like Google, Yahoo & Microsoft started to support canonical links and it was announced in February 2009. Online publishers, bloggers etc. were informed to insert canonical link element in their <head> section of their website template HTML. This is to prevent duplication of content issues. In this post, I'll explain "canonical tag" to you in more detail.

Adding HTTPS Canonical URL Link —
Blogger used to search answers to these questions on Google; how do I use canonical link? What is canonical link in SEO? What is link rel canonical? Do I need a canonical tag? What the canonical URL meaning stands for? How do you implement canonical tags? Should every page have a canonical tag? What is canonical issues SEO? And so on.

To make it simpler, the canonical link element is helpful to clear the search engines that which page should be treated as the original or preferred one.

Canonical link code inserted on a page such as https://www.yourwebsiteurl.com/page.php?parameter=1 is for letting the search engine know that https://www.yourwebsiteurl.com/ is the original or preferred version of the website.

Your website can be opened with many parameters like with 'WWW' or without WWW, with 'HTTP' or without 'HTTPS', with mobile versions like '/?m=0' or many other formats. All those links are nothing but your website page. But to know the search engine about the authentic URL or link, every web developer needs to add a canonical URL link in the HTML body of each page.

In previous pages, you have seen;

Canonical URL Link

By making use of the canonical link, you will definitely be going to solve the duplicate content issue.

Let me explain to you how; e.g. https://www.yourwebsiteurl.com and https://yourwebsiteurl.com (i.e. without 'www') redirect a user to the same page. The search engine treats the content published on both links as the duplicate of one another. Only if you have inserted canonical link code in your template, the search engine will treat content on both pages as one.

Canonical URL allows you to tell the search engines that all your URLs which looks similar are actually referred to the same link.

Also, if you carefully choose a proper canonical link for a similar set of URLs, you will see improvement in your SEO ranking. This is because the search engine knows about which version is canonical one, so it will then count all the links as the canonical version rather than pointing to different versions.

Canonical Link Element To Resolve Duplicate Content Issue

Anyways, now you came to know about what is the canonical link & canonical tag in SEO works, and why you have to use it for your website or blog. Now, moving ahead, I have given a quick guide about how you can add the canonical link element in your website HTML Template.

Adding HTTPS canonical URL link in WordPress/Blogger To Resolve Duplicate Content Issue

Just follow below steps to add the canonical link in your website HTML Template. 1. Open your Blogger dashboard.

2. Navigate to Edit HTML page.

3. Search for the below code.

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Note: If you find this code, that means, you have already added canonical link element. If NOT, please proceed to the next steps.

4. Search for <head> and insert below code BEFORE it.

<link rel='canonical' expr:href='data:blog.canonicalUrl'/>

5. That's it, just save the HTML Template.

You can check your canonical link with; CANONICAL URL/LOCATION CHECKER

Bottom Line

The canonical link is very much supported by top search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and Bing. And making use of the canonical link is the right way for improving the SEO level of your website.

If you are facing this error or something you want to suggest apart from the above points, feel free to use below comment section below to get in touch with me anytime. Happy to hear from you and to implement the suggestions for helping others.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and help us spread the word.

SEO Mistakes WordPress

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Vinayak SP

A passionate web geek, digital columnist, and a successful solo entrepreneur who has been dedicatedly working on ProBlogBooster. Don't miss out on his insights - Join the PBB tribe & follow on social media and subscribe to email newsletter to stay updated with the latest tech trends & internet buzz!

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