A little confused with the Canonical tag

[Contra]

I use code in my .htaccess file to 301 redirect from mysite.com to www.mysite.com.

Also, I set www.mysite.com to the preferred page in Google WMTs.

Should I also put a canonical tag in my actually pages? I see people talking about doing this and I am not sure if this applies to me.

[Jocelyn]

If many versions of the same page can exist, you can use the canonical tag to set the one really to use.
So, if you have both blabla(dot)bla/index.htm and blabla(dot)bla/ indexed, you can set one as being the one to use.

[Ann Smarty]

Here's a good article on when to implement it and when not: 5 Key Rel="Canonical" Implementation Considerations

In your case, I'd say there's no need but read the article for more insight!

[eddyf]

Interesting article Ann. Like many sites, I added canonical tags to all my pages as a "it can't hurt" strategy, even though I have a redirect set up and WMT preferred page set up.
For these kind of on-page issues I look at the source code of several household name sites to see what they are doing. Recently I saw that Apple was using canonical tags to point a page at itself. Looking today, I no longer see the tags. Many major sites use the tag to point at itself. According to the article, Bing may have an issue with this. So, I'm on the fence as to keeping or ditching the tags. Technically they serve no purpose if you have addressed canonical issues at a higher level.

Ed

[imexperttools]

If you already 301 redirect your site from non www to www then there is no need to use the canonical tag anymore. You only use the canonical tag when there is two version of a URLs exist at once.

[AlexTampa]

If you already 301 redirect your site from non www to www then there is no need to use the canonical tag anymore. You only use the canonical tag when there is two version of a URLs exist at once.

wrong

have you ever used a CMS?


www and non-www are NOT the only factors.

You also have http & https

as well as

index.php

&& index.php?

&& index.php&nothing

&++

[Contra]

wrong

have you ever used a CMS?


www and non-www are NOT the only factors.

You also have http & https

as well as

index.php

&& index.php?

&& index.php&nothing

&++

I'm pretty sure he was being specific to my situation in which I am only worried about www and non-www.