'How to make Canonicals with PHP

I've search around on SO, but can't find an exact answer to my needs.

Generating a URL is pretty easy...

Like so:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com<?php echo ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); ?>" />

But, the issue with this is, the $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) will always fetch the current file in use, so the canonical URL could potentially change.

So it could flick between www.example.com/hello.php and www.example.com/hello/, and many other variations depending on how the user accesses your site.

How do I make it so it's always the same url? (preferably without .php)

phpseocanonical-link


Solution 1:[1]

Worked it out myself, pretty basic:

<?php
$fullurl = ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
$trimmed = trim($fullurl, ".php");
$canonical = rtrim($trimmed, '/') . '/';
?>

Then... 

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com<?php echo $canonical ?>" />

I'm sure there's different methods, but it works for me.

Solution 2:[2]

This is what i do.

<?php

// get the rigth protocol
$protocol = !empty($_SERVER['HTTPS']) ? 'https' : 'http';

// simply render canonical base on the current http host ( multiple host ) + requests
echo $protocol . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

?>

Solution 3:[3]

I think your scripts require a bit of sanitisation, am I right? I mean, if your page is

https://example.com/test.php

but a malicious - but harmless - person does

https://example.com/test.php/anotherThing.php

your canonical would become

https://example.com/anotherThing.php

you wouldn't want that to happen, though, am I right? Especially if the malicious person is not harmless and does worst things with your urls...

Solution 4:[4]

This will remove query parameters like ?search=abc&page=32

Option 1:

$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . strtok($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '?');

Option 2 (does the same) :

$url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_SCHEME'] . '://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . parse_url($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], PHP_URL_PATH);

Then echo

echo '<link rel="canonical" href="' . $url . '" />';

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 MattHodson
Solution 2
Solution 3 Pierpaolo
Solution 4

Related Questions