A canonical tag is an HTML element used to prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred version of a web page among multiple similar or identical pages. It tells search engines which URL should be considered authoritative, consolidating link equity and directing ranking signals to the chosen version.

This is particularly useful for e-commerce sites with multiple pages showing similar products or content. Implementing canonical tags helps maintain a site’s SEO health by avoiding penalties for duplicate content and ensuring search engines index the correct pages.

Example

“We added a canonical tag to our site to indicate the main version of each page, helping search engines avoid indexing duplicates.”