Ref = Canonical

[JustInsulation]

Does it make sense to use the Canonical statement on pages on your web site that already have the correct URL. Or, should I ask, "Does it do any harm?"

[StreamlineMetrics]

It doesn't do any harm and in fact, I would recommend using canonical tags just in case some people access your site via a link that has parameters in the URL, such as www.yoursite.com/?utm_campaign=twitter, etc. The canonical tag will ensure that the search engines are always aware about indexing the correct URL.

Also, it's important to note that the proper syntax is rel="canonical" and not ref="canonical".

[JustInsulation]

Thanks for the speedy response Streamline,

We have just rewritten our web site using a directory structure, rather than having all of the HTML pages in the root folder, and used rel=canonical on all pages, because we were/are really worried about our (fairly good) rankings being negatively impacted.

We have also used rel=canonical in the redirect pages, as we believed that this was an appropriate use of of the 'tag.'

PS

(Sorry about the earlier 'Ref' typo)