What is url canonicalization?

Canonicalization is the process that search engines use to determine the best URL or website address when several different choices exist. This is a common issue that is predominantly related to home page files at the root level. In other words, the following URL’s all appear to be the same for a web user:

www.yourdomain.com
yourdomain.com/
www.yourdomain.com/index.shtml
yourdomain.com/default.asp

On the other hand, search engines view the above URL’s as different pages. Web servers sees each URL differently and treats each independently, therefore each of the above URL’s could display different content if desired. When a search engine attempts to –canonicalize– a URL, it tries to choose the best page to represent the website.

The simplest way to discover if you are experiencing this issue would be to perform a search using part of the content found on your homepage. If one then one result appears, on the search engine result pages, you may want to correct this issue using a 301 redirect on your web server. The 301 redirect will instruct the search engine as to which URL you desire to be “canonical.” The 301 redirect will perform a permanent redirect to the specified URL as seen in the sample below:

User types address into their browser:

http://yourdomain.com

The 301 redirect will redirect any request to the specified address:

http://www.yourdomain.com

I have seen countless websites displaying the same content on two or more different URL’s. Search engines penalize duplicate content causing problems and poor performance for the site owners while obtaining organic rankings. The funny thing is most website owners don’t know this pertains to their sites.

DMO.

David Montalvo is the CEO of UnReal Web Marketing LLC. He has achieved over 15,000 top 10 positions for Fortune 500 companies since 1997.