Rel=canonical

[singingtelegramsuk]

My website is built around a template, the hosting site say I can only add code into the body of the webpage not the header, will this be ok for rel=canonical

If it is my next question is redundant but as there is only one place to put it which urls do I need to place in the code

http://domain.com, www.domain.com or http://www.domain.com

the /default.asp option for my website does not seem to exist, so I guess is not relevant

thanks

[MickEdwards]

rel=canonical needs to either go within the tags or the HTTP header.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html

[singingtelegramsuk]

Ok that means I can not use it on my main website but I have another hosted elsewhere where I can. So If I add the code in the head section of my web editor which links do I need to include

http://www.domain.com http://domain.com or www.domain.com  and what is the correct syntax

I am assuming that my web editor changes 1 of those, but the change shows up on all three, so which is the authoritative page and which pages need to be referenced in the tag

I read the google article but I think I am more confused than ever

Thank you

[MickEdwards]

http://www.domain.com is the same as www.domain.com.  http is the protocol in which web pages are formatted and sent and would be part of any "complete" URL.

So to answer your question, if there are no redirects in place you can choose either the non www or www version for your canonical tags.  However if you are looking to consolidate to a particular version I would look at updating your htaccess file to create a redirect rule from one version to the other.

#Force non-www to www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

or

#Force www to non-www:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]