What is Canonical URL?
Turkish: Kanonik URL
A canonical URL is an HTML tag that tells search engines the preferred version of a page to prevent duplicate content issues.
What is a Canonical URL?
A canonical URL is the search engine signal that identifies the main version among several URLs with the same or very similar content. It is usually declared in the page <head> with a rel="canonical" link tag.
Filter parameters, sort options, UTM campaign links, printer-friendly pages, and product variants can all make the same content appear at different addresses. The canonical tag tells search engines which URL should consolidate those signals. If it points to the wrong page, valuable pages may be deindexed or the wrong URL may rank.
Implementation Notes
- Important pages can use a self-referencing canonical tag.
- The canonical URL should be accessible and return a 200 status code.
- It should not conflict with noindex rules, redirects, hreflang, or sitemap entries.
- Pagination, product variants, and filtered category pages need deliberate decisions.
A canonical URL is not the only duplicate-content control; it works together with site architecture and crawl strategy. It should therefore be checked as part of technical SEO, broader SEO, and multilingual hreflang implementation.
Related Terms
A 301 redirect tells browsers and search engines that an old URL has permanently moved to a new address through an HTTP response.
HreflangHreflang is an HTML signal that tells search engines the language and regional target of equivalent multilingual pages.
Index CoverageIndex coverage shows in Search Console whether URLs are indexed by Google, not indexed, or excluded, and explains the reason.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)SEO improves how search engines crawl, understand, and rank a site so it can appear for relevant searches without paid ads.
Technical SEOTechnical SEO improves site infrastructure so search engines can crawl, render, index, and evaluate pages quickly and reliably.