Editing Canonicalization (section)

===URL===

A '''canonical URL''' is a [[URL]] for defining the [[single source of truth]] for [[duplicate content]].

==== Use by Google ====

A canonical URL is the URL of the page that Google thinks is most representative from a set of duplicate pages on your site. For example, if you have URLs for the same page, such as <code>https://example.com/?dress=1234</code> and <code>https://example.com/dresses/1234</code>, Google chooses one as canonical. Note that the pages do not need to be absolutely identical; minor changes in sorting or filtering of list pages do not make the page unique (for example, sorting by price or filtering by item color).

The canonical can be in a different domain than a duplicate.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en|title=Consolidate Duplicate URLs with Canonicals &#124; Google Search Central}}</ref>

==== Internet ====

With the help of canonical URLs, a search engine knows which link should be provided in a query result.

A [[canonical link element]] can get used to define a canonical URL.

==== Intranet ====

In [[intranets]], manual searching for information is predominant. In this case, canonical URLs can be defined in a non-machine-readable form, too. For example in a [[guideline]].

==== Misc ====

Canonical URLs are usually the URLs that get used for the [[share action]].

Since the Canonical URL gets used in the search result of search engines, they are in most cases a [[landing page]].