Canonicalization is the process of picking one URL and making it the official URL for a set of pages. It is the process of picking one version of a page or article and presenting it as the definitive version. In other words, canonicalization is the process of deciding which item on a list is the "real" item. This is important for SEO in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, because it helps to eliminate duplicate content, which can result in a penalty from Google. When partnering with an experienced international SEO consultant, make sure that these activities are also included in the SEO packages in Sri Lanka which they offer you.
This process can be done in two ways:
● Using a 301 redirect, which tells search engines to stop following links on the old page and start following links on the new page.
● Using a rel=canonical tag, which tells search engines to use the current page as an authoritative version of the old page.
The process of canonicalization starts with identifying duplicates on your site and redirecting them to one canonical version if possible. You can do this by using a tool like Screaming Frog or Xenu Link Sleuth, which crawls through your site looking for duplicates. If you have multiple versions of an article, you can choose which version you want search engines to index by using the noindex meta tag in the head section of your HTML code.
This is a process that can be applied on any website, but it has more benefits for websites with many pages and URLs. Canonicalization helps with SEO, as it will make it easier for Google to understand which URL is the best one for a specific page.
However, there are some drawbacks of this process too. These include:
● Sometimes, there are multiple versions of an article with different perspectives, but one perspective may be more popular than others. The canonical version will only show the popular perspective, which can lead to misleading information. This can happen when people are not aware that there are other versions available.
● Canonicalization also makes it difficult to track changes in content over time because it hides previous versions and provides an illusion that nothing has changed on a website.
● Canonicalization can also make it difficult for people to find particular content because they will only see the one version that was selected as canonical by a search engine or web crawler.
