Canonical Tag Checker
Check any page's canonical tag and whether it's self-referencing or points elsewhere.
A canonical tag tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version of a page when the same or similar content is reachable through multiple URLs (with tracking parameters, trailing slashes, or www/non-www variants, for example) — get it wrong, missing, or pointing somewhere unintended, and you risk diluting ranking signals across duplicate URLs or accidentally telling Google to index a different page than the one you meant.
This checker fetches a URL server-side (working around the cross-origin restrictions that would block a purely browser-based check) and extracts its canonical tag, reporting whether it's self-referencing (the expected setup for most pages), pointing to a different URL (sometimes intentional, sometimes a mistake), or missing entirely.
Checking your own pages' canonical tags periodically — especially after a site migration, URL restructuring, or CMS change — catches accidental misconfigurations before they affect how search engines index your content.
How to use Canonical Tag Checker
- 1
Enter a page URL
Type the full URL, including https://, of the page you want to check.
- 2
Click Check
The tool fetches the page and extracts its canonical tag.
- 3
Review the result
See whether the canonical is self-referencing, points elsewhere, or is missing.
Features
- Works around CORS restrictions via server-side fetching
- Clearly flags self-referencing vs. cross-referencing canonicals
- Reports the page's HTTP response status alongside the canonical check
- Instant results for any publicly accessible URL
Frequently asked questions
Common mistakes to avoid
- Accidentally canonicalizing every page on a site to the homepage, which prevents individual pages from being indexed properly.
- Leaving a staging or development canonical URL in place after deploying to production.
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