Canonical URL is set
Why it matters
Without a canonical URL, Google treats https://example.com/page, https://www.example.com/page, and https://example.com/page?utm_source=x as three separate URLs competing for the same ranking slot. Link equity fragments across variants, duplicate-content filters kick in, and the version Google indexes is nondeterministic. A canonical tag consolidates signals to one preferred URL and eliminates an entire class of ranking self-harm.
Severity rationale
Medium because duplicate-content dilution degrades rankings over time but rarely triggers a hard penalty on its own.
Remediation
Emit a <link rel="canonical"> with the absolute preferred URL on every indexable page. In Next.js App Router, set it via the metadata API so the scheme and host are consistent across the site:
// app/page.tsx
export const metadata = {
alternates: { canonical: 'https://yoursite.com/page-path' },
};
For static HTML, place <link rel="canonical" href="https://yoursite.com/page-path"> in the <head>.
DetectionPro
The detection method for this pattern is part of AuditBuffet Pro.
The full method (what to look for, pass and fail conditions, and how results get reported) ships inside the Site Health Check audit. The pattern definition, severity rationale, and remediation remain openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.
Taxons
History
- 2026-04-18·v1.0.0·Initial import from site-health-check·automated