Canonicals: Multiple Conflicting

Pages with multiple canonicals set for a URL that have different URLs specified (via either multiple link elements, HTTP header, or both combined).

This can lead to unpredictability, as there should only be a single canonical URL set by a single implementation (link element, or HTTP header) for a page.

How to Analyse in the SEO Spider

View URLs with this issue in the ‘Canonicals’ tab and ‘Multiple Conflicting’ filter, and export all URLs using the ‘Export’ button.

Read our tutorial on ‘How To Audit Canonicals‘.

What Triggers This Issue

This issue is triggered when pages have multiple canonicals set with different URLs, which can be through multiple link elements, an HTTP header, or a combination of both.

For example:

https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

Has the canonicals:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/">

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/about/">

How To Fix

Specify a single canonical URL using a single approach (link element, or HTTP header) for every page to avoid any potential mix ups.