- Search engines will not know which version of the page to include in the index and which one to exclude.
- Search engines won’t know whether to direct all link metrics (contributors for ranking) to a single page or distribute it between all the various versions of a page.
- Search engines will not be able to tell which version to rank for search results.
What is a Canonical Link?
A canonical link is an element that is included in a page to point search engines to the preferred version of the page. By doing so search engines will know exactly which page the owner of the website wants to be indexed and ranked over other pages with the same content. This will help stop the problem of link metrics being improperly distributed and the potential harm to your rankings that come along with that. Making sure to include canonical links on your pages in important because you can’t always control how other people and sites will link to your pages. Say for example that you have the tow pages on your site: This stops the problem of link metrics being improperly distributed and the potential harm to your rankings that comes along with that. Including canonical links in your pages is important as well because you can’t always control how other people and sites will link to your pages. Say for example you have the two following pages on your site:- example.com/practice/emergency-plumbers
- example.com/emergency-plumbers