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Canonical to another address

canonicals.canonicalised
Priority
Note
Severity
Info

What we look for

The canonical tag on these pages (a line in <head>, or a server header, naming the preferred address) points to a different address.

Why it matters

Search engines usually show the address it names instead of these pages. That is right for copies, print versions and filtered lists, and there it needs no change.

How to fix

Point the canonical tag at the page's own address on any page that should appear in search results itself. Leave it on copies that should give way to the main version.

Seen in a real crawl

From a crawl of Fernhollow Outdoor, a test site built for this site’s demo.

Note

3 pages name another address as their preferred version

  • /tents/?sort=priceCanonicalised to /tents/
  • /tents/?colour=greenCanonicalised to /tents/
  • /waterproofs/storm-shell/Canonicalised to /products/storm-shell
Paths on http://127.0.0.1:8006raptor 0.3.0, 17 Oct 2026

Open this finding in that crawl’s report

It also fired on Kestrel Bay Digital and the js-heavy fixture.

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.canonicalised
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.canonicalised"
The HTML report
This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=canonicals.canonicalised
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.canonicalised"
}