Check 7 of 23 · Can AI find the rest of your site?

Each page names its one true address

Most pages can be reached at more than one address. A canonical link tells robots which one is the real one, so credit is not split.

  • Who fixes itYou, or your web person
  • TimeAbout 15 minutes
  • Worth3 of 100 points
  • How sure we areLikely

What this is

Your homepage probably answers at several addresses:

https://yourbusiness.com
https://yourbusiness.com/
https://www.yourbusiness.com/
https://yourbusiness.com/?ref=facebook

To you those are all the same page. To a robot they can look like four pages with the same words on them.

A canonical link is one line hidden in the page that says “of all my addresses, this is the real one.” Canonical just means official.

Why it matters to you

This is a small check, 3 points. When a robot sees the same page at several addresses, it may count them separately. A mention here, a mention there, and none of them adds up. The canonical link tells it to pool everything under one address.

This mostly helps with tidiness. It is not what gets you found. It stops a small leak.

What we look for

We read the hidden top part of your homepage (the <head>) and look for one line: <link rel="canonical" href="...">.

  • Pass: the line is there and points somewhere.
  • Warn: the line is missing.

There is no fail on this one.

Whether you can fix this yourself

Yes, usually. Most platforms add it for you already. When they do not, it is one line of code per page, which is a job for a web person on a custom site but a switch on WordPress.

Squarespace, Wix, Shopify and SimplePractice all add a canonical link to every page on their own. If you are on one of those and this warned, the platform may have changed something, or your homepage is being served from somewhere unusual. Search your platform’s help for “canonical” to confirm.

How to fix it

The line to add, inside the <head> of each page, pointing at that page’s own real address:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://yourbusiness.com/" />

WordPress

Yoast SEO and Rank Math add this to every page automatically. Install one and it is done. If you have one and still got a warn, something is stripping it out, often a caching or “optimize HTML” plugin. Turn that off and re-check.

Squarespace or Wix

Already done for you. Nothing to change.

Shopify

Already done for you. Every theme includes it.

Your own site or a developer

Add the line to your page template so it fills in each page’s own address. Most static site tools have a “canonical” or “site URL” setting that does this in one place.

How to check it worked

Open your homepage, right-click, choose “View page source”, and search for the word canonical. You should find one line with your address in it. Then run the free check again.

Do not worry about

Whether the canonical uses www or not. Either is fine, as long as you pick one and every page agrees.