Declared target
Extract and resolve the first canonical URL from the public page HTML.
Free canonical tag checker / live HTML
Check the canonical URL a public page declares.
Enter a URL to find its declared canonical target, count duplicate declarations, follow the page’s safe redirects, and surface missing, invalid, mismatched, or off-domain values.
✓ No signup✓ Live public response✓ Read-only
Livecanonical extraction
Exactdeclared target
Countedduplicate tags
$0no signup required
See the preferred URL declared in the page source.
A browser tab will not tell you that a template removed a canonical or pointed it somewhere unexpected. This check isolates the public declaration and compares it with the page actually reached.
Missing declaration
Report when no canonical link element is present in the response.
Duplicate canonicals
Count declarations so conflicting markup is visible instead of silently ignored.
Target alignment
Compare the target with the final page and elevate an unexpected off-domain value.
What the result does—and does not—prove.
- ✓The canonical declared in the returned HTML
- ✓The number of canonical link elements
- ✓Whether the value parses as a URL
- ✓Whether it matches the final page or another hostname
- —Google’s selected canonical
- —Duplicate content across the full website
- —Canonicals added only after JavaScript runs
- —Search Console inspection data
Current check → continuous protection
Validate the target once, then protect the approved declaration.
Canonical monitoring records the normalized target for each monitored page. If it disappears, duplicates, or changes destination, RankLatch keeps the exact before-and-after evidence.
See canonical tag monitoring →Straight answers
Before you check.
One live request can verify important public signals. It cannot replace Search Console or prove how a search engine will ultimately treat the page.
01What does the canonical checker return?+
It extracts the first canonical declaration from the public HTML, resolves relative values against the final page URL, counts canonical elements, and compares the target with the page reached after redirects.
02Does every different canonical mean the page is wrong?+
No. A different same-domain canonical can be deliberate, and cross-domain canonicals also have valid uses. The result asks for review and explains the target; it does not automatically claim every mismatch is an error.
03Can this tell me which canonical Google selected?+
No. Canonical markup is a publisher signal, not proof of Google’s final selection. Search Console is the appropriate source for Google’s reported canonical.
04Does it test whether the canonical destination is indexable?+
The focused result validates the declaration on the submitted page and its relationship to the final URL. It does not crawl and audit the entire destination page as a separate job.
05Why does more than one canonical matter?+
Multiple declarations can send conflicting preferences. The checker counts canonical elements and flags a page when more than one is present.
06Can RankLatch monitor the canonical after I fix it?+
Yes. Add the site, approve the current target, and RankLatch compares that normalized canonical during daily checks without changing the website.