Understanding Website Architecture and Canonical URLs

Have you ever wondered how websites are structured? Most websites have some sort of architecture that allows for different pages to be linked together. For example, let’s say you run a website about cooking. You might have one page that discusses the basics of cooking and another page with recipes on how to cook certain foods. These two pages would need to be related somehow so they could both exist on your site without being duplicates. This is where web architecture comes in! The way these two pages are connected is through something called canonical URLs or canonical tags.

WHAT is a canonical url?

According to Google:

Canonical URL: A canonical URL is the URL of the page that Google thinks is most representative from a set of duplicate pages on your site.

For example, if you have URLs for the same page (example.com?dress=1234 and example.com/dresses/1234), Google chooses one as canonical. The pages don\’t need to be absolutely identical; minor changes in sorting or filtering of list pages don\’t make the page unique (for example, sorting by price or filtering by item color).

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/consolidate-duplicate-urls

The canonical URL can be in a different domain than a duplicate URL.

WHY should you use a canonical url?

Sometimes, you might find yourself with a set of duplicate or similar pages in your website. In this case it\’s helpful to choose one canonical page from the bunch so that search engines know where their content should go and provide better results for users who are looking up information about what they have found on another tab within the same site!

Also, If you have two different versions of your website, then you can use a canonical url to point both pages back to the same site.

HOW do you create a canonical url?

This is done by adding code into either your or tags

The code for this will be as follows:

BENEFITS

A canonical url is a great way to reinforce your website\’s credibility and authority. It can be especially useful when it comes time for search rankings, as this will make sure that the pages within each domain are all considered on an equal level by Google algorithm software – which means more traffic!

Standard benefits:

• You\’ll be able to see your site\’s rank in Google.
• The page will load faster for visitors.
• Emotional benefits:
• Your website will look more professional and trustworthy.

GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE setting where you can tell them which page should show up first when someone searches for something like

How to find the canonical url for your website

301 REDIRECT versus NO INDEX META TAG

You can use a redirect url instead of an noindex meta tag if you want to maintain the ranking and freshness for your website, but still offer visitors another entry point. Some people might not like having two pages on their browser bar so it\’s best this way!

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From the basics to advanced website architecture and canonical URLs, we hope that you find it helpful in your quest to build an online presence for your business or organization.

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