Suggest an editImprove this articleRefine the answer for “What is "URL canonicalization"?”. Your changes go to moderation before they’re published.Approval requiredContentWhat you’re changing🇺🇸EN🇺🇦UAPreviewTitle (EN)Short answer (EN)**URL canonicalization** is the process of choosing the primary (canonical) version of a page when the same content is available at several different addresses. **Key point:** the canonical address is specified with a `<link rel="canonical">` tag, and the search engine treats it as the main version, with the rest considered secondary.Shown above the full answer for quick recall.Answer (EN)Image**URL canonicalization** is the process of choosing the **primary (canonical) version of a page** when the same content is available at several different addresses. The goal is to show search engines **which URL to treat as the main one**, so duplicates don't appear and the page's link equity doesn't get diluted. ## Why this is needed at all The same content can be accessible at different addresses, for example: ```javascript example.com/page example.com/page?utm=123 example.com/page/ www.example.com/page ``` To a search engine, these are **different URLs**, which means duplicates. As a result: - search ranking gets worse; - link equity gets "spread thin"; - there can be uniqueness issues. The solution is to specify the canonical address using a tag: ```html <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page"> ``` Then the search engine understands: **the main version is the one in canonical**, and the rest should be treated as secondary.For the reviewerNote to the moderator (optional)Visible only to the moderator. Helps review go faster.