Canonical tag checker
Check whether a page points at itself, or hands its ranking elsewhere.
Free and no signup. This one fetches the URL from our server; nothing about it is stored.
This one fetches the page from our server, so unlike the rest of these tools the URL does leave your browser. Nothing about it is stored.
About this tool
A canonical tag pointing at the wrong URL is one of the few SEO mistakes that can remove a page from search entirely, and it produces no error anywhere. The page loads, the tag is valid, and it quietly says "rank the other one instead" — usually because a template hard-coded a URL that was right for one page and wrong for every other.
- A self-referencing canonical is what almost every page should have. It is what stops a URL with a tracking parameter being treated as a separate page.
- A relative canonical is ignored, which is the same as having none. It must be absolute, including the protocol.
- Pointing elsewhere is correct only for a genuine duplicate that should defer to an original. Anywhere else it is a page giving its ranking away.
- The final URL after redirects is compared, not the URL you typed, since that is what the tag is actually being judged against.
Questions
- What is a self-referencing canonical?
- A page whose canonical tag points at itself. It is the correct default, and it is what consolidates the variants of a URL — trailing slashes, tracking parameters — onto one page.
- Can a canonical tag remove my page from Google?
- Effectively, yes. If it points at another URL, you have told Google to rank that one instead — and the page will quietly stop appearing.
- Does a canonical have to be absolute?
- Yes. A relative canonical is ignored entirely, which leaves you with the same problems as having no tag at all.