# Homepage doesn't have canonical URL

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/homepage-doesnt-have-canonical-url/50450>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [21 Septiembre, 2016 19:34 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/homepage-doesnt-have-canonical-url/50450 "2016-09-21T19:34:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8

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**Author:** ![michaeld](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/michaeld/32/1594_2.png) [@michaeld](https://meta.discourse.org/u/michaeld)\
**Post date:** [21 Octubre, 2016 11:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/homepage-doesnt-have-canonical-url/50450/8 "2016-10-21T11:33:48Z")

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> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> This seems like such a bad idea, I’m not sure why anyone would want to encourage it?

Not encouraging, but supporting it would be desirable.  
One specific example where this would be handy is to have a soft launch of a rebranding, where you want to communicate the new URL to search engines before communicating it to the customers.  
(Real life example)

Another thing is that a third party can cause a search engine issue by causing duplicate content issues by linking to your home page with arbitrary parameters.

> **[Duplicate content: Causes and solutions](https://yoast.com/duplicate-content/#url-parameters)**
>
> You might have duplicate content issues without even knowing it! Discover the common causes, and how to identify and fix them in this guide.

This is caught on every page of a Discourse installation except for the home page - because of the fact that the call to `canonical_url` is just omitted there. I would make a pull request if I was able to determine the exact code path for the home page…

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/homepage-doesnt-have-canonical-url/50450)._