URL Canonicalization & WHY it Matters

Matt Cutts recently wrote a blog post about URL Canonicalization and although it may sound boring it is incredibly valuable to any person doing, seeking, or contemplating SEO. Canonicalization, to put it briefly, is redirecting many different variations of a web address to one chosen variation, therefore erasing duplicate content that can get you penalized and your content dropped or lowered on search engines. This example, taken from Matt Cutts’ blog, shows how seemingly the same URLs can all lead to different pages and content if it is not properly canonicalized.

• www.example.com
• example.com/
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/home.asp

Although all of these URLS could potentially lead to the same page on your site, they are in fact different URLS and can be seen as individual pages by search engine spiders. As Matt points out, all of those URLS could potentially lead to different content. Canonicalization is when you redirect all the variations of your page to one, allowing search engines to easily recognize that there is only one copy of your page. The easiest way to do this is to add a 301 redirect to your .htaccess code. a 301 redirect, or a permanent redirect, is a search engine friendly way to forward visitors and search engine bots to your desired page.

You should canonicalize all of the pages on your site to one form (either www form or non-www form). Adding the following code to your .htaccess file (if you are on a CMS, be careful that this does not conflict with their default code):

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^.]+\.[a-z]{2,6})$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%1/$1 [R=301,L]

You can find other variations of the 301 redirect in htaccess by simply searching google for “301 htaccess”. If you have any questions or need help you can also email LUCID’s Internet Marketing Director, dan@lucidpublicrelations.com and he will assist you.