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I have created a tag.php page in the theme. It's working perfectly. I am getting the tags post on the page.

Now I have added the below link to the header.php page.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="<?php echo wp_get_canonical_url(); ?>"/>

The above code is showing the canonical URL perfectly on all the pages but when I open my tag page then it's not showing the canonical URL. It's showing the first URL of the post

Any idea what is the issue?

tag.php code below

<?php
   /**
   * A Simple tag Template
   */
   get_header(); 

?>  
<div id="primary" class="content-area">
   <main id="main" class="site-main">

    <section class="resource-container" id="light-header">


        <div class="container">
            <?php $tag = get_queried_object();?>
            <h1><?php echo $tag->name; ?></h1>
       </div> 
          
 </section> 

   </main>
</div>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>
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1 Answer 1

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4

This is because wp_get_canonical_url can only be used on posts, and cannot be used for tags authors archives etc.

Returns the canonical URL for a post.

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_get_canonical_url/

More specifically, no equivalent exists for tag archives because archives and listings do not have canonical URLs. A canonical URL indicates to a search engine the correct and canonical location of a piece of content, but an archive is not an item of content, it's a collection/list.

Instead, it would be more logical to use the archive URL of the queried term, say get_term_link:

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_term_link/

Just keep in mind that this too is semantically incorrect, the alternate link rel is for specifying alternative countries and locales, not the canonical URL:

If you're using a multilingual plugin then you will need to look up how they handle this or your tag will always refer to the current locale.

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  • My aim is to show only the current URL. So I tried wp_get_canonical_url. Thank you for sharing the information, Let me check the above links
    – user9437856
    Jul 23, 2022 at 9:34
  • if that's the case then you shouldn't be using alternate, the alternate is for an alternative different URL that is equivalent but in a different language. If the goal was to indicate to google that the page was in en_US then this is not the solution. This tag is for when you're on an english page but want to tell Google "this is also available here in spanish"
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Jul 23, 2022 at 12:16
  • Little bit confused here. I have to show that the page is in en_US and it's ready in English. My target audience is from the USA. That's the reason I am using that hreflang="en-US".
    – user9437856
    Jul 23, 2022 at 15:07
  • That link was shared by the SEO team and said I have to add it along with the page URL on each page. So I thought wp_get_canonical_url() is the right to show the current URL of the page. Any ideas and suggestions for this?
    – user9437856
    Jul 23, 2022 at 15:09
  • wp_get_canonical_url is only for single posts, not archives.
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Jul 23, 2022 at 15:53

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