the2m2g.

Glossary / C

Canonical Tag

In one line

An HTML tag naming the preferred version of duplicate pages.

When similar or identical content lives at several URLs, a canonical tag tells Google which one to index and credit. It prevents duplicate-content dilution and consolidates ranking signals onto one URL.

Also called
rel=canonical

Ritesh kumar
Founder of the2m2g, writing about SEO in plain English.