Canonical URI extension for Firefox

Like the webmasters of any big, content rich site, we were thrilled by the announcement that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft had agreed to support the new 'canonical tag' when indexing pages. Thrilled until we realised how many pages we'd need to change, that is.

To make our lives slightly easier, we decided to write a Firefox extension (and learn not to call them plugins) to let us see the canonical URI of a page without having to view-source. We're very happy to share the canonical uri firefox extension with you.

Features of the Wahanda Canonical Firefox Extension

We tried to keep this extension as simple as possible, so the only thing it does is:

• Indicate whether or not the canonical tag has been set
• Allow you to click on that link to make sure that it resolves to the pages you're expecting.

Installing the extension

If you're using Firefox you can follow this link to install the canonical uri extension now.

Known bugs and missing features

In the spirit of keeping it simple, releasing early and often, etc, the extension has a couple of foibles.

• If you change tab, the extension still shows the canonical URI of the previous page
• The click-and-test functionality only works for absolute canonical URIs. We think. We haven't found a site using relative URIs.

How come Wahanda doesn't use the canonical tag?

We do, and we've even tuned the URI on some of our pages. If you take a look at our product and place listing pages, you'll see that the canonical URI excludes filters and search dimensions that we don't want to be indexed.

Who do I complain to?

...or thank if you are so inclined :-)

canonical@wahanda.com