Self-referencing canonical tag on every page (homepage and listing pages included)
Problem
Category pages and custom pages output a <link rel="canonical">, but the homepage and every listing detail page don't. On a directory, the listing pages are most of the site (1,680 of ~1,800 URLs on ours). Without a canonical, Google has to guess which version is the main one when the same page is reached with query parameters (tracking, filters, pagination, affiliate tags), and it can split ranking signals between duplicates.
Proposal
- Output a self-referencing canonical (absolute URL, no query string) on every public page by default: homepage, listings, categories, pages, posts.
- Add an optional "Canonical URL" override field on listings, the same as the one pages already have.
Workaround today
None. The canonical can't be injected reliably from custom code.
Pending