Introduction

If you’re a WordPress user, you’ve probably heard the term canonical URL. But what exactly is it? And why should you care? We’ll answer those questions and more in this post by answering these two key questions:

What is a canonical tag?

You’ve probably heard the term “canonical tag” before. It’s just a fancy word that means you’re using canonical URLs to tell search engines which URL they should index, and when you have multiple URLs pointing to the same content, you can use canonical tags to specify which of them is the original.

Canonical tags are also used in Google Analytics metrics tracking javascript code on your site so that when someone searches for something specific (or multiple somethings), GA will know where exactly on your site an action happened within that search result page.

Why canonical tags are important in WordPress?

A canonical tag is a keyword or phrase that tells search engines where to find the content you want to be indexed. It’s essentially a keyword or phrase used in your posts and pages that help search engines understand what your content is about.

If you have duplicate content issues on your website, then using canonical tags can help reduce those issues by allowing search engines know which version of the same content belongs together on your site (this will also help avoid penalties from Google).

Best practice for using canonical tags

Now that you’ve learned how to use canonical tags, it’s time to consider some best practices. First and foremost, you should use canonical tags to help search engines understand your site structure. This will help them properly rank pages across different domains on their search engine results pages (SERPs).

Your next goal is to reduce duplicate content on your site by using canonical tags correctly. Duplicate content occurs when two or more copies of the same information are found on a website—for example, if someone posts an article about “how many people died in the earthquake” on both their personal blog and at work’s corporate website. To combat this issue, you’ll want to set up redirects between all versions of this article so that visitors will automatically be redirected from one page back onto another page with relevant information instead of seeing duplicate entries in SERPs.

Finally, if possible (and depending on how much control over WordPress’ settings), try setting up redirects between different versions of any PDF file uploaded into WordPress’ media library so readers aren’t confused when they click through from one version in Google Docs vs another version within WordPress itself!

Plugins for managing rel=canonical tags in WordPress

There are several plugins to help you manage rel=canonical tags in WordPress.

WordPress SEO by Yoast is one of the most popular plugins and it has a number of features that can be used to create and manage your canonical tags. The plugin allows you to add a redirect from one URL to another using the rel=canonical tag, or alternatively, use meta robots tags on individual posts or pages. The plugin also allows for customizations such as different icons for different types of links (e.g., images), which makes it an excellent choice if you want a more consistent look across your site (see below).

Redirection plugin – Redirector for Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Canonical URLs should be part of your on-site SEO strategy.

Canonical tags are a meta tag used to define the preferred version of a page that should be indexed by search engines. They can also be used as a way to avoid duplicate content issues, especially if you have multiple versions of your content on different pages.

The canonical tag is important for SEO because it helps Google determine how they should display your website in their results. The more relevant information you provide about each page, the better chance you have at ranking higher on SERP’s (search engine results pages).

Conclusion

The canonical tag is a fascinating way to manage your site’s URLs. The most important thing to remember is that the content on your site should be unique and different from any other version of it. You don’t want people clicking on links thinking they were sent here by mistake because their browser thought they were going somewhere else!