Enter the page address and the address you want search engines to index, then paste the page's HTML source and, if you have them, its response headers. The checker reads the canonical tag, the canonical HTTP header, the robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag, the status code and the redirect chain, and tells you where they disagree. It does not visit other websites: browsers block one site from reading another, and we do not run a hidden crawler. You paste what the tool needs and it checks that text. The page shows the one-line commands that give you the headers and HTML.
Most canonical problems are contradictions: a canonical that points at a redirect, a page that is noindex and canonical to another page, a tag in the HTML that disagrees with the one in the HTTP header, or a canonical to http on an https site. Each tells search engines two things at once, and they then pick for you.
Checking the canonical together with the status code, redirects and robots directives is what surfaces those contradictions. A checker that only reads the tag misses most of them.
Load the example on the page: a made-up service page on example.com, reached through an http to https redirect, whose canonical points at an http address on the www host with a trailing slash. The checker reports the redirect, the canonical on http, the canonical on a different host and the mismatch with the preferred URL, with the fix for each.
Browsers stop a web page from reading another website's content, so a tool that runs in your browser cannot fetch your page for you. Tools that appear to do it run a server that fetches for them. We chose to keep this one fully in your browser and tell you exactly how to get the source.
It tells search engines which address is the main version of a page when the same content is reachable at several addresses, for example with and without tracking parameters. Search engines usually follow it, but can choose another URL if other signals disagree.
It is a good default. A canonical pointing at the page itself protects against copies created by parameters, capitalisation or trailing slashes.
Here, a missing canonical means the HTML you pasted has no rel=canonical. If you paste nothing, or paste an error page, the checker says the HTML was not checked, so you do not mistake a failed fetch for a missing tag.
No. Google treats it as a strong hint. The URL Inspection tool in Search Console shows the canonical Google actually chose.
Related: Redirect Checker, Sitemap Checker, Hreflang Generator, Website builder, Website Cost Calculator, Website Checker, Business website templates, Pricing.
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