I’m excited to announce the release of a new Chrome extension I have been working on. Introducing Inspect Canonical! This Chrome extension was created to fill a void in the industry for easily identifying not only a canonical tag on a given URL but anytime a page improperly uses the canonical tag.
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Download Inspect Canonical Chrome Extension
Below are the conditions Inspect Canonical tests for, in the order, it tests for:
RED “C” = ERROR, Canonical tag not valid for one of the following reasons
- Page contains noindex robots meta
Message: “Page contains robots ‘noindex’ tag. Canonical tags are ignored. Click to view source”
- No canonical in the head but there is one elsewhere
Message: “Canonical tag exists but not in <head>. Click to view source”
- No canonical tag at all
Message: “Page has no canonical tag. Click to view source”
- More than one canonical tag on page
Message: “Multiple ([X]) canonical tags found. Click to view source”
- Canonical exists but is missing the href attribute (relative vs absolute URL)
Message: “Canonical tag is missing ‘href’ attribute. Click to view source”
Amber “C” = Canonical tag present but points to a different URL
- Canonical present but differs to current URL
Message: “Canonical tag points to another URL. Click to visit URL: [URL]”
Green “C” = Canonical tag is present (self-referencing) and correct
- Canonical is present and correct
Message: “Canonical tag points to current URL. Click to view source”
Thank You, Download and Providing Feedback
I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Jon Hogg who was the mastermind behind coding this extension. He also created the Chrome extension View Rendered Source which is an absolute must for anyone who works with sites containing JavaScript.
You can download the official Inspect Canonical Chrome extension in the Chrome Webstore. It’s 100% free for everyone to use.
If you have feedback on the extension please feel free to include it in the comments or send directly to me through the contact form.
