Marketing & search · Website help · Canonical and URL variants

The HTTP header and HTML canonical conflict

A hosting layer supplies one preferred address while the page HTML supplies another. Different technical owners each believe their configuration is correct.

What to change

A preferred address can be supplied by both page markup and the hosting response. Ask the two technical owners to compare those values in the public response, including any cached version. Choose one coherent policy and remove the disagreement at its source. A useful handover identifies where each setting lives, so a future hosting change cannot restore the conflict without the page editor noticing.

A worked example

Illustrative example

Illustrative test: Compare a direct origin response with the public cached response where supported.

How to check the result

Public responses provide a coherent canonical preference across both mechanisms.

A mistake to avoid

Reviewing source HTML alone misses headers added by hosting infrastructure.

Your action checklist

Use these checks to prepare a discussion with your team or supplier. Tick a check when you have recorded the decision or evidence, rather than when a feature has simply been promised.

Decisions to record

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Healthcare SEO research with a search-results page, inspection lens, location pin and service card.
Match a useful service page to the searcher's task.
Healthcare technical SEO illustrated by a page hierarchy and connected internal links.
Give visitors and crawlers clear routes through the website.
Healthcare SEO measurement with unnumbered reporting charts, a source document and review checklist.
Read search evidence alongside useful enquiry outcomes.

Further reading

These primary sources provide additional context for the project decisions above.

Related decisions

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