Creators

How to Set a Canonical URL

How to Set a Canonical URL

What Is a Canonical URL?

A canonical URL is an HTML element that prevents duplicate content. This helps prevent SEO issues by indicating whether a URL is a "canonical" or "preferred" version of a page. If Google discovers multiple pages on the same site that seem to be the same, it will chose the one that is the most complete and useful and marks it as canonical. According to Google , the canonical page will be crawled most regularly; duplicates are crawled less frequently in order to reduce the crawling load on your site.

One of the main reasons why you should choose using a canonical URL is to specify which URL that you want people to see in search results. In other words, if you have a web page accessible by multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (e.g. separate mobile and desktop versions), you should specify to a search engine which URL is authoritative by designating it as a canonical URL.

If you host content that isn't yours, like partnership posts or affiliate marketing pages, you can still point to the original source of the content in the canonical URL. You do this by making sure all of the URLs contain rel=canonical that points back to the site or page you would like it to direct to. This is a great way to allow republishing permissions without losing any of the SEO value. Read more about this here .

On RebelMouse, you can easily change the "rel=canonical" of a post by putting your desired URL in the Advanced Settings tab of our Entry Editor:


From there, insert a URL in the Source URL field to set your article's canonical URL. You can even choose if your post links out directly to it, or just references it in the source code.

Here's a video of how it works:

If you have questions about this feature, please contact your account manager.

What Is RebelMouse?
Request a Proposal

Where
Websites Are Built

The Fastest Sites in the World Run on RebelMouse

Let’s Chat

new!

RebelMouse Performance Monitoring

Real-Time Core Web Vitals

Get Started
DISCOVER MORE

Our Core Features

Our platform is a complete digital publishing toolbox that's built for modern-day content creators, and includes game-changing features such as our:

Why RebelMouse?

Unprecedented Scale

RebelMouse sites reach more than 120M people a month, with an always-modern solution that combines cutting-edge technology with decades of media savvy. And due to our massive scale, 1 in 3 Americans have visited a website powered by RebelMouse.

120M+ Users
550M+ Pageviews
17+ Avg. Minutes per User
6+ Avg. Pages per User

Today's Top Websites Use RebelMouse

Thanks to the tremendous scale of our network, we are able to analyze a wealth of traffic data that informs our strategies and allows us to be a true strategic partner instead of just a vendor.

What Clients Say

We’re here to help you weigh and understand every tech and strategic decision that affects your digital presence. Spend less time managing everything yourself, and more time focused on creating the quality content your users deserve.

Case Studies

A Team Built Like No Other

RebelMouse employs a unique, diverse, and decentralized team that consists of 70+ digital traffic experts across more than 25 different countries. We have no central office, and we cover every time zone to ensure that we’re able to deliver amazing results and enterprise-grade support around the clock.

Our team is well-versed in all things product, content, traffic, and revenue, and we strategically deploy ourselves to help with each element across all of our clients. We thrive on solving the complex.

Let's Chat