What is the canonical link in SEO?

[bangalorewebgur]

What is the canonical link in SEO?

[friendhrm]

The rel=canonical element, often called the “canonical link”, is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues. It does this by specifying the “canonical URL”, the “preferred” version of a web page. Using it well improves a site's SEO

[sin123]

The rel=canonical element, often called the “canonical link”, is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues. It does this by specifying the “canonical URL”, the “preferred” version of a web page. Using it well improves a site's SEO.

[sadianisar]

Canonical link in SEO is used to prevent the issue of duplicate content.

[sam657]

Canonical link is a HTML tag that is used in SEO to prevent duplication

[aspdotnet]

Canonical helps you to prevent webmaster to count content as duplicate. you have to put just one line code in your website.

[dennis123]

Canonical URL defined as the preferred URL for the page content to be indexed in the Major Search Engines. Websites have two or more links of the same content with different parameter. In this time Search Engines are confused about Which One is needed to be Index?
Example if I am taking this same page URL

ORIGINAL URL: http://www.bestseoideas.com/url-optimization/what-is-canonical-url

I want to pass the referral Parameters so the Original Link will be changed like below
URL with Parameters: http://www.bestseoideas.com/url-optimization/what-is-canonical-url?utm_source=bestseoideas&utm_medium=referral
The above Example URLs that are not same but the content showed in the page is exactly same content. Search Engine confused which one need to be indexed. To resolve this issue Canonical URL will be used in each and every page.
Canonical URL: http://www.bestseoideas.com/url-optimization/what-is-canonical-url
So the above URL only will get indexed by major search Engines and redirect all the users to this URL by using the Canonical tag. While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint by Search Engines and not an absolute directive.