Canonical tag redirect multiple homepage url to 1 url www to non www

Canonical tag redirects to correct page. Some time user types https://websitename/, http://websitename, https://www.websitename, www://websitename or simply website name to open a website and lands nowhere finds error page. This is called a canonical issue. Canonical tag is used to sort out the issue. The tag is inserted in the header portion of the website’s theme. With the help of given canonical link/tag you can redirect www to non www, http to https, multiple homepage url to 1 url.

When multiple web pages of a single web page is created or some duplicated web pages created is called canonical issue. Canonical tag starting with <link rel= and ending with /> is inserted in the header section of website theme for Shopify it is inserted inside theme liquid file. The process is same for all custom coded websites. WordPress plugin gives flexibility for any code insertion. Canonical tag will redirect multiple home page urls to 1 url. It will redirect http to https, www to non www and homepag url ending with slash to the same url which you choose with canonical tag. It comes under on page seo checklist, a seo practice which you should know to optimize your site. Today we will learn what is a canonical issue and how to solve canonical issues permanently with a simple code called canonical tag. 

Canonical tag redirect multiple homepage url to 1 url www to non www

What is canonical issue

When multiple web pages of a single web page automatically or by mistake created creates a canonical issue in which google bots fail to identify the correct page. In simple words as we fail to identify among twin kids having similar features and slight differences like mole on palm. Similarly Google bots fail to identify  the pages with similar URLs. 

Be noted that urls are not exactly the same, they are slightly different from each other. For example one url is https://daddyblogs.in/seo-services-near-you and another looks like this https://daddyblogs.in/seo-services-near-me. This similarity is enough to confuse google bots to which url they crawl primarily or which url they should crawl among both similar url’s resulting in canonical issues. Crawling in seo is very important to identify the errors, screamingfrog tool is useful to crawl 500 url’s free of cost.

Let’s understand with another example:

This often happens with 99% websites but most website owners don’t know about this issue so they even don’t try to resolve it but it has bad seo resulting in slight rank down. 

Apart from the primary URL, other urls are created automatically or by mistake.

Primary url – https://daddyblogs.in

Other urls

• daddyblogs.in
• https://daddyblogs.in/
• http://daddyblogs.in 
• https://www.daddyblogs.in
• www://daddy blogs.in

When users type other urls they find no website or error page this is due to canonical issues. To divert all other urls on the primary URL is solving canonical issues. Setting redirection for this issue is a wrong practice. Instead solve it by inserting a 1 liner canonical tag in the header section of the theme.

How to resolve canonical issue

In custom coding websites you have only the option to insert the code in the header section. However, in wordpress websites you have two options: 1. insert the (code) canonical tag manually or use plugins like header footer to insert the tag.

This is the tag which need to be insert in the header section

Canonical tag – <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://pasteurlhere/” />

This is a canonical html tag which is inserted in html file inside theme editor. It redirects www to non www, http and https to 1 url.

One must verify the code whether the correct code without any mistake is inserted in the correct position. To check it, copy other urls one by one and check them in different tabs. If all the other urls open in the form of the primary url then the code is inserted correctly. 

Check canonical tag without logging in website

To check the canonical tag in any website open that website and press ctrl + U = resource page. In the resource page press ctrl + f and type canonical. If the tag is inserted then you will see the canonical tag in yellow highlight. 

Conclusion – After reading this block you can easily redirect a website from www to non www, from http to https and from different urls to one url of your choice like https://daddyblogs.in.

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