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Canonical URL Generator

Generate the exact rel="canonical" tag for any URL, with the right format, escaping, and protocol. Copy-paste ready for your <head>.

Paste any URL and get the exact <link rel="canonical"> tag plus a sanity check on the URL itself.

URL to canonicalise *

Use the absolute, https, parameter-stripped version of the URL.

HTML to paste in your <head>

HTTP Header alternative

What it does

Generate copy-paste-ready canonical tags, done right

Most "canonical generators" just wrap your URL in a tag and call it done. This one handles the edge cases that actually break canonicalisation: non-ASCII characters in URLs, query parameter ordering, http vs https normalisation, trailing slash decisions, and cross-domain canonical syntax.

Paste the URL you want to canonicalise. The generator returns the correctly-formatted tag plus a 30-second sanity check explaining why this URL is the right canonical (or warning you if it might not be).

The 5-rule canonical decision framework

Which URL should be your canonical? Use this framework

Pick the URL with the cleanest, shortest path. Strip tracking parameters (utm_*, fbclid, gclid, etc.), they should never be in a canonical.
Pick https over http. Always.
Pick the version most of your internal links point to. Use Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to check.
Pick the version your XML sitemap lists. If they disagree, fix the sitemap or the canonical to match.
Pick the version that has the most external backlinks. Use Ahrefs Site Explorer → "Top pages" filtered by URL pattern.

When all five point to the same URL, that's your canonical. When they conflict, you have a consolidation problem to fix BEFORE setting the canonical.

Frequently asked

FAQs about the Canonical URL Generator

Where do I put the canonical tag?

Inside the <head> of your HTML, before the closing </head> tag. Most CMSs have a "Canonical URL" field per post or page, that's the right place. If you set it via a meta plugin and your theme also adds one, you'll get duplicate canonicals.

Should I include UTM tracking parameters in the canonical?

Never. UTM parameters are for campaign tracking, they create unique URLs for each campaign that you do NOT want indexed. The canonical should always point to the parameter-stripped, clean URL.

What about pagination, should /blog?page=2 canonical to /blog?

No, that was the old advice. Google now recommends self-referencing canonicals on paginated pages (each page references itself), combined with rel="next"/"prev" if you want to signal sequence. Canonicalising page 2 to page 1 hides page 2's content from indexing.

Can I set a canonical via HTTP header instead of HTML?

Yes, useful for non-HTML content like PDFs. Send a Link header: Link: <https://canonical-url>; rel="canonical". Most servers (Nginx, Apache) can be configured to inject this.

Do I need both rel="canonical" AND og:url?

They serve different purposes. Canonical is for search engines. og:url is for social sharing (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). Best practice is to set both to the same URL.

My CMS adds a self-canonical automatically. Can I remove it?

You don't need to. Self-referencing canonicals are the safe default. Only override them if you specifically need to canonicalise to a different URL (parameter cleanup, syndication, etc.).

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Generate copy-paste-ready canonical tags, done right

Which URL should be your canonical? Use this framework

FAQs about the Canonical URL Generator

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