Canonical URL Checker

Enter a URL to check its <link rel="canonical"> tag — whether one is present, whether it points back at the page itself or somewhere else, whether it's an absolute URL, and whether the target actually resolves. Any URL can be checked, not just a tracked Dodolytics website. Free tool, nothing you check is stored; results are shown once and not saved.

This tool only checks the HTML <link rel="canonical"> tag — it does not check a canonical set via the rarer HTTP Link: response header, which is mostly used on non-HTML resources like PDFs or APIs.

What is a canonical URL?

A canonical URL is the single, "preferred" version of a page when the same or near-identical content is reachable through more than one URL — for example with and without a trailing slash, over http vs https, with tracking or sorting parameters attached, or as a paginated/ printer-friendly/AMP variant of a "main" page. It's declared with a <link rel="canonical"> tag, telling search engines which one of those URLs to actually index and rank.

How do I add one?

Add one tag inside the page's <head>:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/the-preferred-url">

A few rules worth following: use a full, absolute URL (not a relative path); make sure the scheme and host actually match the URL you want indexed; and include only one canonical tag per page — having more than one is invalid, and search engines may ignore all of them or pick one unpredictably. Most ordinary pages should self-reference (point at their own URL); only point elsewhere when this page is genuinely a duplicate or variant of another page you'd rather have indexed instead.

Why is it useful?

Consolidates ranking signals onto one URL instead of splitting them across several near-identical ones, which is what usually happens with unmanaged duplicate content.
Controls exactly which URL shows up in search results, even when visitors can reach the same content several different ways.
Handles common cases cleanly: query strings (tracking parameters, session IDs, sort/filter options), pagination, printer-friendly pages, and AMP or mobile variants that all represent the same underlying content.