Suggest an editImprove this articleRefine the answer for “What is a canonical URL?”. Your changes go to moderation before they’re published.Approval requiredContentWhat you’re changing🇺🇸EN🇺🇦UAPreviewTitle (EN)Short answer (EN)A **canonical URL** is the main (preferred) address of a page, specified to search engines when the same content is available at multiple URLs. **Key point:** without it, pages with identical content can compete with each other, lowering rankings.Shown above the full answer for quick recall.Answer (EN)ImageA **canonical URL** is the main (preferred) address of a page, specified to search engines when the same content is available at multiple URLs. ### Why it's needed: If the same text is placed at: - `site.com/page` - `site.com/page?ref=ads` - `site.com/page/index.html` Google sees this as duplicates. And a canonical URL says: **"Here's the main version, count this one for indexing."** ### What it looks like: In HTML, this is added to `<head>`: ```html <link rel="canonical" href="https://site.com/page"> ``` ### Why use it: - Removes duplicates from search. - Concentrates SEO weight in one URL. - Simplifies indexing and ranking. Without this, pages with identical content can compete with each other, lowering rankings.For the reviewerNote to the moderator (optional)Visible only to the moderator. Helps review go faster.