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Adding canonical tags to Joomla articles is easy with Custom Canonical. First, make sure you have installed and enabled the plugin.

Joomla Articles

You will need to set the Article setting in the plugin configuration to Yes.

How to set an article canonical tag

  1. Log into your Joomla back-end.
  2. Navigate to Content > Articles.
  3. Create or open the article you wish to place the canonical tag on.
  4. Click the Publishing tab.
  5. Enter the URL you wish to serve as the canonical link in the Canonical URL field.
  6. Click Save in the toolbar.

Your article canonical tag has been successfully created.

Content Categories

You will need to set the Category setting in the plugin configuration to Yes.

How to set a category canonical tag

  1. Log into your Joomla back-end.
  2. Navigate to Content > Categories.
  3. Create or open the category you wish to place the canonical tag on.
  4. Click the Publishing tab.
  5. Enter the URL you wish to serve as the canonical link in the Canonical URL field.
  6. Click Save in the toolbar.

Your category canonical tag has been successfully created.

Tags

You will need to set the Tag setting in the plugin configuration to Yes.

How to set a canonical tag for a Joomla tag

  1. Log into your Joomla back-end.
  2. Navigate to Components > Tags.
  3. Create or open the tag you wish to place the canonical tag on.
  4. Click the Publishing tab.
  5. Enter the URL you wish to serve as the canonical link in the Canonical URL field.
  6. Click Save in the toolbar.

Your tag canonical tag has been successfully created.

Menu Items

Warning: Before setting menu item canonical tags, read Canonical Tags Hierarchy. A failure to understand how canonical URLs are passed to child content can cause your site to be indexed incorrectly.

You will need to set the Menu Items setting in the plugin configuration to Yes.

How to set a menu item canonical tag

  1. Log into your Joomla back-end.
  2. Navigate to Menus > YOUR MENU NAME.
  3. Create or open the article you wish to place the canonical tag on.
  4. Click the Metadata tab.
  5. Enter the URL you wish to serve as the canonical link in the Canonical URL field.
  6. Click Save in the toolbar.

Your menu item canonical tag has been successfully created.

Note: if the menu item type does not serve content (e.g. Menu Heading and Menu Item Alias) the Metadata tab will not be available. You will see a new tab titled Canonical. However, entering any data into the Canonical URL field will do nothing since no content is served by this menu item type.

After you have saved your canonical tag verify that it is correct on the Joomla front-end by checking HTML <head> in the page source code.