Skip to content
Raptor home
Menu

Misplaced canonical tag

canonicals.canonical_outside_head
Priority
Medium
Severity
Warning

What we look for

The canonical tag (the line naming a page's preferred address) on these pages sits outside <head>, the top section of the page's code, and no server header gives one instead.

Why it matters

Google ignores a canonical tag outside <head>, so to search engines these pages name no preferred address at all.

How to fix

Move the canonical tag into <head> in the page template. If it is already there in your source, look for an element above it, such as an <img> or a <div>, that makes the browser end <head> early.

Where you’ll see it

The id is stable, and every surface uses it, so it’s the thing to search for or hand to an agent.

Terminal
When it is one of the five findings under Fix first, raptor crawl prints the id under it.
Check: canonicals.canonical_outside_head
crawl.json and the CSV
The crawl JSON names the finding by this id, and so do the CSV and raptor_query.
"check_id": "canonicals.canonical_outside_head"
The HTML report
This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=canonicals.canonical_outside_head
MCP
raptor_findings with this check_id returns the finding in full, with a fix brief ready to paste into a task. If it didn’t fire, it says why.
raptor_findings {
  "job_id": "...",
  "check_id": "canonicals.canonical_outside_head"
}