All checks / Answer Readiness

Warning unstable-urls

Canonical URL is stable

What this check means

Checks that your canonical URL carries no session identifiers or campaign tracking parameters.

Why it matters

A citation is only as durable as the URL inside it. A canonical carrying a session id points at something that expires, and one carrying campaign parameters attributes every future visitor to a campaign that ended — while quietly fragmenting the page across dozens of near-identical addresses.

How we detect it

We read the canonical URL and look for session or tracking parameters: utm_*, gclid, fbclid, sessionid, PHPSESSID, jsessionid, sid, and similar.

How to fix it

Strip query parameters from the canonical URL. It should be the plain address of the page.

Check whether this applies to your site.

Run an AI audit

Other Answer Readiness checks