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Rule · Canonicalization

The canonical link is inside the head

SEO-CANON-01C1 Mechanism· w8

Class
C1 Mechanism
Weight
8
Severity on fail
critical
Applies to
Google

Test this rule on a live site with the canonical tag checker. Free, no account needed.

Scope and evidence

Evaluated on pages in P with at least one link[rel~=canonical]. The book marks this requirement REQUIRED, SEARCH-ENGINE-SPECIFIC.

{culprit_clause} = " because the parser closed <head> at line {head_closed_line}, where it met {culprit}" when SEO-HEAD-05 found a culprit.

Fail conditions

Each condition has a stable code and a reason template. The evaluator fills the placeholders from observed values only; no sentence in a report is generated.

  • outside_head

    Google accepts rel="canonical" only in the <head>. On {url} the canonical element (line {line}) is in <body>{culprit_clause}, so Google will not accept it.

The documented fix

Emit the canonical in the server-rendered head, before any third-party snippet, and fix the culprit reported by SEO-HEAD-05.

Sources, quoted

These are the passages the rule rests on, stored once in the knowledge base and emitted exactly as written. A citation marked for specific conditions appears only on findings with those codes.