# What is Canonical URL? | Yungle glossary

> A canonical URL tells search engines which version of a page is the 'master' copy to index.

Source: https://yungle.ai/glossary/canonical-url/

1.  [Resources](https://yungle.ai/resources)
2.  Glossary

Glossary · C

# Canonical URL

In plain words

A canonical URL is a tag that tells search engines which version of a page should be treated as the authoritative one when duplicate or near-duplicate content exists across multiple URLs. Setting canonicals correctly prevents search engines from splitting ranking value across duplicate pages.

Example

The same page lives at /pricing and /pricing?utm\_source=linkedin. A canonical tag pointing to /pricing tells Google to index only the clean version.

Related resources

-   Insight

    ## How to Write Copy AI Answer Engines Can Quote

    A practical guide to writing website copy that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can extract, attribute to your brand and cite.

    [Read insight](https://yungle.ai/insights/writing-copy-that-ai-answer-engines-can-quote)
-   Glossary

    ## Hreflang

    Hreflang is an HTML tag that tells search engines which language and region a page targets.

    [See term](https://yungle.ai/glossary/hreflang)
-   Glossary

    ## SEO

    Making your site easy for search engines to find, read and rank.

    [See term](https://yungle.ai/glossary/seo)
-   FAQ

    ## How Do I Optimize My Website for Search Engines?

    Start with clean technical SEO — fast load times, proper heading structure, mobile responsiveness — then build content around what your actual customers are searching for. Most sites over-invest in keywords and under-invest in structure. Google needs to crawl and understand your site before content quality even matters. Fix the technical foundation first, then focus content on answering real customer questions clearly.

    [See answer](https://yungle.ai/resources?type=faq#how-do-i-optimize-my-website-for-search-engines)
-   FAQ

    ## Why Is My Website Not Ranking on Google?

    Your website likely isn't ranking due to a combination of thin or irrelevant content, weak technical SEO, slow load speed, or a lack of quality backlinks pointing to your site. Run a technical audit first — broken links, missing metadata, and slow pages are common and fixable quickly. If technical health is solid, the issue is usually content: not enough pages targeting real search intent, or content too generic to compete with more specific pages.

    [See answer](https://yungle.ai/resources?type=faq#why-is-my-website-not-ranking-on-google)
-   Insight

    ## How to Structure a Homepage for AEO

    How to structure a homepage so ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can understand it, extract a clear answer and cite your brand.

    [Read insight](https://yungle.ai/insights/how-aeo-changes-the-way-we-build-your-homepage)

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