In website operation, it is crucial to ensure that search engines efficiently and accurately crawl and understand our content.Among them, the Canonical URL is an indispensable SEO strategy.It can help us solve the problem of duplicate content, concentrate page weight, and thus optimize the website's performance in search engines.AnQiCMS as a SEO-friendly and powerful content management system naturally also provides comprehensive link configuration options, allowing users to easily manage this important feature.
What is a Canonical URL and its importance?
Imagine that your website has an article that may have multiple URLs for various reasons.For example, the same product detail page may be accessed through different category paths, or parameters may be added to the end of the URL due to reasons such as ad placement, statistical tracking, etc.wwwandnon-wwwDomain names, even if they havehttpandhttpsVersion. In these cases, although the content is the same, they are considered different pages by search engines.
For search engines, these seemingly different URLs point to completely identical or highly similar content.This will cause the so-called 'duplicate content' issue.When a search engine detects a large amount of duplicate content, it may become confused, not knowing which page is the original or preferred. This not only disperses the page's weight but also affects crawling efficiency (wasting crawling budget), and may even lead to poor page ranking or penalties.
The canonical URL is the URL that you want to be indexed and ranked by search engines among many URLs pointing to the same content. It is specified in the HTML of the page.<head>Partly add a specific one<link rel="canonical" href="..." />Tags, you can explicitly indicate to the search engine which URL represents the "standard" version of the content.This helps avoid duplicate content penalties, consolidate page authority, and ensure that both users and search engines can find the version you want them to find.
Canonical URL configuration in AnQiCMS: Step-by-step implementation
It is very intuitive to configure the specification link in AnQiCMS, mainly performed in the backend interface when you create or edit specific content (such as articles, products, etc.).
Firstly, you need to log in to the AnQiCMS backend and navigate to the "Content Management" section.Whether it is to 'publish documents' to create new content or to edit existing content through 'document management', you can find the settings option for standard links on the content editing page.
At the bottom of the document editing page, there is usually a collapsible area named 'Other Parameters'.After expanding this area, you will find an input box specifically used for entering the "standard link".Here, you need to enter the complete, preferred URL for this content.http://orhttps://An absolute path at the beginning, for example,https://www.yourdomain.com/docs/anqicms-guide.
This feature is particularly suitable for the following scenarios:
- Duplicate content across different domains or subdomains:If the same article is published on the main site and the sub-site, you can specify one of them as the standard version.
- Multiple paths access the same content within the site:For example, a product page may be accessed through
/products/categoryA/product-nameand/new-arrivals/product-nameAll are accessible, you should choose one as the standard URL. - URL with tracking parameters:
yourdomain.com/pageandyourdomain.com/page?source=adsContent is the same, set the parameterless URL as the standard. - Pages with different versions but similar content:For example, if the print version of a product page or the mobile version of a page is highly similar, the main page can be set as the standard.
Fill in this input box correctly to complete the backend configuration.
Display Canonical URL in the template: Make sure search engines recognize it
It is not enough to just fill in the standard link in the background. When searching engines crawl web pages, they need to go through the page code to find the<link rel="canonical" href="..." />Label to identify the specific standard URL you specify. This means that you need to dynamically output the standard link configured in the background of AnQiCMS template files to the page.<head>Part.
AnQiCMS provides a convenient TDK (Title, Description, Keywords) tag to help us achieve this, which also includes standard linksCanonicalUrlThe invocation.
You need to find your website template file, usually located in./templatethe directory.base.htmlOr a similar public header template file. In the file's<head>You can add the following code inside the tag to retrieve and display the standard link:
{%- tdk canonical with name="CanonicalUrl" %}
{%- if canonical %}
<link rel="canonical" href="{{canonical}}" />
{%- endif %}
Let's decode this piece of code:
{%- tdk canonical with name="CanonicalUrl" %}This line of code is a template tag of AnQiCMS, its function is to get the standard link value of the current page from the background.canonicalis the temporary variable name we define for this value,name="CanonicalUrl"This indicates that we want to retrieve the data of the standard link. The preceding-symbol is used to avoid outputting extra blank lines, making the HTML code neater.{%- if canonical %}This is a conditional judgment. It checks the information we just obtained.canonicalWhether the variable contains the actual URL value (i.e., not empty). The internal code block will only be executed when the backend has indeed configured the standard link for the current page.<link rel="canonical" href="{{canonical}}" />IfcanonicalThe variable has a value, this line of HTML code will be output to the page.rel="canonical"Explicitly tell the search engine that this is a standard link,href="{{canonical}}"which then inserted the preferred URL set in the background.{%- endif %}End condition judgment.
The advantage of this code is its flexibility: it only outputs when a specification link is actually specified for a page, avoiding unnecessary code or incorrect empty tags. At the same time, placing it in<head>Inside the tag, it is a recommended **practice by the search engine to ensure that the crawling tool can discover and process standard link information in the first time.
You can easily set standard links for website content through the flexible backend configuration and powerful template tags of AnQiCMS.This not only effectively solves the SEO problems caused by duplicate content, but also helps search engines more efficiently crawl your website, concentrate page weight, and ultimately improve your website's performance in search results.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q1: How will the system handle the template if I have not set the 'standard link' for a document in the background?
A1: If you have not set a standard link for a specific document in the background,{%- tdk canonical with name="CanonicalUrl" %}the value obtained by this line of code will becanonicalthe variable will be empty. Since the template uses{%- if canonical %}for conditional judgment, whencanonicalis empty<link rel="canonical" href="..." />Tags will not be output to the HTML code of the page.This means that the page will not have an explicit specification link declaration, and search engines will judge the specification version of the page based on their own algorithms.
Q2: Can I directly use the homepage URL as the standard link for all pages?
A2: No. The purpose of the standard link is to indicatethe same content[The] preferred URL.If all page guidelines are directed to the homepage, it will seriously mislead search engines.Search engines will consider all the content on your website as duplicate of the homepage, which not only severely affects the inclusion and ranking of other pages, but may also lead to a decline in the overall ranking of the website.Each independent content page should have its own unique, canonical link pointing to the preferred version of the content.
Q3: What is the difference between a canonical URL and a 301 redirect, and when should each be used?
A3: Canonical URL and 301 redirect are both important SEO tools for handling duplicate content and URL management, but they have different application scenarios.
- 301 Redirect:is a server-side permanent redirect that tells the browser and search engines 'This page has permanently moved, please visit the new address'. When the old URL is no longer in use and it is desired that all access to the old URL