MetaForge · meta tags
rel=canonical
Names the address you want indexed when the same content is reachable at several URLs. Without it, parameters and trailing slashes split one page into several.
How the audit judges it
| Field present | good — 8.3 of 8.3 points |
| Field missing | fail — 0 of 8.3 points |
A missing value fails outright here: the page loses the whole share, because nothing downstream can substitute for it.
The audit checks that the tag is there, not that it points somewhere sensible. That distinction matters, but not in the way it is often told: rel=canonical is a hint, not a directive. A canonical aimed at a 404 or at a page with unrelated content is normally discarded — the search engine picks its own canonical and says so in Search Console as "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user". The case that really costs you is a canonical pointing at a page that is live and plausibly similar — the home page of the whole site, or a paginated first page — because that one is honoured and your page drops out. Either way it is a judgement no tag-reader can make for you.
Check a real page
Paste a URL and get all 12 fields with their values, the verdict on each, and the rewrite suggestions — or run a batch and export the whole set as CSV.
Open MetaForge