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Importance: Low
Error «Identical Canonical URLs» Description
Indicates all pages with identical canonical URLs in the <link rel="canonical" /> tags in the <head> section or 'Link: rel="canonical"' HTTP response header. URLs in this report are grouped by the 'Canonical URL' parameter.
The Importance of the Problem
When a page is available via several addresses or a site has multiple pages with similar content, search engines recommend to specify which URL is the main and has to be shown in search using the <link rel="canonical" /> tag or the 'Link: rel="canonical"' HTTP header. Thereby search robots will not waste their resources on crawling duplicate or unimportant pages.
If a canonical URL is not set for several duplicate pages, a search engine may choose the main URL itself or consider multiple addresses equal. As a result, unimportant pages might get higher rankings in search. It may lead to low rankings of important pages, traffic loss, and even removal of these pages from search results.
Note that canonical is a hint for search engines, not a strong directive. Also, it should be used only for pages with very similar content. Otherwise, it may be ignored.
How to Fix Error
Make sure the same canonical URL is set on pages with similar content and is relevant to them.
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