SEO
Setting up WordPress canonical URLs correctly
9 January 2025 · 4 min read
Duplicate content is a common SEO problem with WordPress. When the same content is accessible via multiple URLs, Google does not know which version should be indexed. Canonical URLs solve this by designating the "official" version of a page.
At WP Maintainer we set up canonical tags correctly for all our clients. In this article we explain how it works and how to prevent problems.
What is a canonical URL?
A canonical URL is an HTML tag that indicates the preferred version of a page. The tag looks like this: <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page/">
With this you tell search engines: "This page is the official version. Index this one and ignore other variants."
When are canonical URLs needed?
Canonical URLs in WordPress
Most SEO plugins automatically add canonical tags: **Yoast SEO:** Automatic canonical tags on all pages. Under "Advanced" you can set the canonical manually.
Common problems
Check your canonicals
1. View the source code (Ctrl+U) and search for "canonical" 2. Use the Google URL Inspection Tool 3. Crawl your site with Screaming Frog (500 URLs free) 4. Check Google Search Console for duplicate content warnings
WP Maintainer service
We check and optimise canonical tags as part of our SEO maintenance. We ensure there are no duplicate content problems and that search engines index the right pages.