Canonicals: Missing

Pages that have no canonical URL present either as a link element, or via HTTP header.

If a page doesn’t indicate a canonical URL, Google will identify what they think is the best version or URL.

This can lead to ranking unpredictability when there are multiple versions discovered, and hence generally all URLs should specify a canonical version.

How to Analyse in the SEO Spider

View URLs with this issue in the ‘Canonicals’ tab and ‘Missing’ filter, and export all URLs using the ‘Export’ button.

Ensure that pages missing canonicals do not rely on JavaScript. Enable JavaScript rendering mode via ‘Config > Spider > Rendering > JavaScript’ to check the raw and rendered HTML.

Read our tutorial on ‘How To Audit Canonicals‘.

What Triggers This Issue

This issue is triggered when pages lack a canonical URL, neither specified in a link element nor via an HTTP header.

How To Fix

Specify a canonical URL for every page to avoid any potential ranking unpredictability if multiple versions of the same page are discovered on different URLs.