canonical url

[Chameleon]

Hi just a question about canonical urls. If my website only has single versions of the web page and nothing similar do I still need to have a canonical url?
If I need to have a canonical url would I just use the url for that page as the canonical url? i.e https://www.pagename.co.uk and canonical url of https://www.pagename.co.uk or could I use https://pagename.co.uk as the canonical url?
Do I really need to have a canonical url at all?

thanks,

William

[wwonderfull]

The reason canonical must be specified is so search engines do not see it as duplicate thus them not indexing it at all. That is the reason canonical is defined so your website URL gets canonical tag where all links in one url. redirecting the www version is preferred and keeping the https and non www URL as the initial canonical URL is what would be a better practice.

[Chameleon]

Thanks wwonderfull,

I understand that I would use it for duplicate pages and not for redirects. Would it be better then to just use the same page address for the canonical?
What happens if it is left blank?

Thanks, William

[wwonderfull]

If it is left blank, then search engines gives penalty for it. Some index the website on their search engines and others do not. But in terms of modern indexing according to google and others, it has become a must or else in google webmaster you will see errors and even the page being taken down just because of duplicate content because the canonical was not set.

For example, think of it like 4 crossroads leading where your store is located so the address is not the 4 roads but only one of them which you find easier to walk ride. Similarly, https://example.com is easier to write compared to https://www/example.com which is longer and is not needed or even https://example.com/index.html or better would be https://example.com/ without any index.html.

Both can be indexed, so it is more about better practices.

You can read more about canonical url from google devs too https://developers.google.com/search/do ... icate-urls

[Chameleon]

Cheers wwonderfull,

Ok that makes sense now. I will make the adjustments and check in google console.
Nice to learn something new lol.

Thanks, William