Canonical Tags:

Canonicalization for SEOs refers to normalizing (redirecting to a single dominant version)

multiple URLs.
Generally we use canonical tags on different occasions

1. Duplicate content
2. Self-Referencing
3. AMP Version
4. Paginated Content
1. Duplicate Content: These Tags are used when there is duplicate content or the same webpage is
present on website.
Usage:
Lets Consider the below webpage "www.abc.com" has duplicate content on another webpage
with URL www.abc.om/. Then a canonical tag should be used on the webpage www.abc.com/
pointing towards www.abc.com

Similarly if we have multiple Duplicate Webpages for a single main webpage then all the other
multiple duplicate webpages should have to point towards the main page.

We need to determine which version of URL we need to keep either the first one or second one
depending on the URL which we decide to keep as a main source we need to use canonical tag.

If I am planning to keep www.abc.com as my main URL and www.abc.com/ as my duplicate one. Then I
will have to define a canonical tag on the duplicate webpage pointing towards the main page.

So, the canonical Tag on the www.abc.com/ webpage would look like

Syntax:
<link rel="canonical" href="www.abc.com">

Example:
The below URLs have same or Duplicate Content
https://www.tcs.com/tcs-innovation-forumlondon-2017
https://www.tcs.com/worldwide/tcs-innovation-forum-london-2017
Here we want the link which does not have worldwide folder to be the main URL.
Then
The Link https://www.tcs.com/worldwide/tcs-innovation-forum-london-2017 will have canonical tag set
to https://www.tcs.com/tcs-innovation-forumlondon-2017

If there are Multiple Duplicate URLs for my main URL www.abc.com then canonical tags used on those
URLs Is shown below.

Duplicate Page 1 Duplicate Page 2 Duplicate Page 3

Duplicate webpages www.abc.com/ www.abc.com/a www.abc.com/b
Canonical Tag will be www.abc.com www.abc.com www.abc.com
pointing towards
2. Self-Referencing
Self-Referencing Canonical Tag points the same website. Utilizing Self Referencing Canonical
Tags is a defensive SEO Strategy.
Self-referencing canonical tags need to be implemented on Every page except on the pages
which have Duplicate content and Paginated Content

Usage:
Lets Consider The below webpage www.abc.om Then a canonical tag should be pointing towards
www.abc.com

So, the canonical Tag on the www.abc.com webpage would look like
Syntax:
<link rel="canonical" href="www.abc.com">
Example:
Lets take TCS homepage www.tcs.com
A canonical tag should be set on the homepage pointing towards the home page
<link rel="canonical" href="www.tcs.com">

Points to Remember
1. The canonical Tag is placed inside the head tag of the webpage and better to keep the
canonical tag as top as possible in the head tag.
2. Do not canonicalize paginated content in the same manner explained above
The Paginated Content should be canonicalized using rel = prev and rel = next
3. Do not use multiple canonical tags on a single webpage
4. Do not use canonical to point not similar webpages as it might reduce the trust of
website.
e.g. If a webpage is showing something about car don not use canonical to point it
towards a webpage showing information about a bike

3. AMP Version URL: When using same URL for two different pages i.e. (Normal & AMP version) of the
webpage search engines consider it to be as duplicate content. So as to avoid Duplicate content issues we
need to use canonicalization.
If you have both AMP and non-AMP versions of your pages, include the following links:

On any non-AMP page, reference the AMP version of the page to let Google and other
platforms know about it:

<link rel="amphtml" href="https://www.example.com/url/to/amp-version.html" />

On the AMP page, add the following text to reference its non-AMP canonical version:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/url/to/regular-html-version.html" />

4. Paginated Content:
Sites paginate content in various ways. For example:

News and/or publishing sites often divide a long article into several shorter pages.
Retail sites may divide the list of items in a large product category into multiple pages.
Discussion forums often break threads into sequential URLs.

If you paginate content on your site, and you want that content to appear in search results, we
recommend one of the following three options.
Do nothing. Paginated content is very common, and Google does a good job returning the most
relevant results to users, regardless of whether content is divided into multiple pages.
Specify a View All page. Searchers commonly prefer to view a whole article or category on a
single page. Therefore, if we think this is what the searcher is looking for, we try to show the
View All page in search results. You can also add a rel="canonical" link to the component pages
to tell Google that the View All version is the version you want to appear in search results.
Use rel="next" and rel="prev" links to indicate the relationship between component URLs. This
markup provides a strong hint to Google that you would like us to treat these pages as a logical
sequence, thus consolidating their linking properties and usually sending searchers to the first
page.

Using rel="next" and rel="prev"

You can use the HTML attributes rel="next" and rel="prev" to indicate the relationship between
individual URLs. Using these attributes is a strong hint to Google that you want it to treat these pages as
a logical sequence.

Let's say you have content paginated into the following URLs:

http://www.example.com/article-part1.html
http://www.example.com/article-part2.html
http://www.example.com/article-part3.html
http://www.example.com/article-part4.html
1. In the <head> section of the first page (http://www.example.com/article-part1.html), add a link
tag pointing to the next page in the sequence, like this:
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/article-part2.html">
Because this is the first URL in the sequence, theres no need to add markup for rel="prev".

2. On the second and third pages, add links pointing to the previous and next URLs in the
sequence. For example, you could add the following to the second page of the sequence:
3. <link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/article-part1.html">
4. <link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/article-part3.html">
5. On the final page of the sequence (http://www.example.com/article-part4.html>), add a link
pointing to the previous URL, like this:
<link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/article-part3.html">
Because this is the final URL in the sequence, theres no need to add a rel="next" link.