{
  "schemaVersion": "crawler-atlas-1",
  "atlasVersion": "atlas-2026-07-28-v1",
  "canonical": "/atlas/canonical-links",
  "title": "Canonical links",
  "category": {
    "slug": "directives",
    "title": "Crawler and indexing directives"
  },
  "definition": "A canonical link identifies the preferred representative among duplicate or near-duplicate URLs.",
  "mechanism": "Search systems combine the declared canonical with redirects, internal links, sitemap entries, content similarity, and other signals before selecting a representative.",
  "validation": "Make redirects, internal links, sitemap URLs, and canonical declarations agree, then verify that duplicate variants remain fetchable but are not promoted as primary.",
  "commonFailure": "Canonical is a hint rather than an unconditional command; conflicting signals can cause a crawler to choose a different URL.",
  "related": [
    "/atlas/url-normalization",
    "/atlas/duplicate-content"
  ],
  "modified": "2026-07-28"
}