We’re excited to introduce a new way to keep your reports cleaner, faster, and far more efficient: the new “Prefer Canonical URLs” option, now enabled by default.
If your site includes multiple URLs that render the same content — for example, pages with query parameters, filters, or category variations — Rocket Validator could previously pick up each of those URLs as separate pages. That often led to duplicate validations, duplicate issues, and reports reaching the 5,000-page hard limit sooner than they should.
To see how big the impact can be, we tested this on our own Rocket Validator website.
Without canonical URLs, a full-site report hit the 5,000-page limit.
With canonical URLs enabled, the same report produced just 1,477 pages — that’s 29% of the original size, less than one-third.
Fewer pages validated means lower costs, faster reports, and far less noise.
How it works
When “Prefer Canonical URLs” is enabled (for both on-demand reports and schedules), Rocket Validator will automatically use a page’s canonical URL when one is provided.
A canonical URL tells search engines and tools like Rocket Validator which version of a page is the primary one, helping to avoid duplicates.
For example, your blog might have different URLs that display the same content, depending on the category or filter applied:
https://example.com/blog?category=accessibility
https://example.com/blog?category=html
https://example.com/blog?category=performanceEach of these pages could include a canonical tag pointing to the main version of the blog page:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/blog" />
When “Prefer Canonical URLs” is enabled, Rocket Validator will use the canonical URL (https://example.com/blog in the example above) instead of validating each of the category versions separately.
Canonical URLs are the new default
From now on, “Prefer Canonical URLs” is the default setting for all new reports and schedules.
If you already have existing schedules, they’ll continue using their current settings — so if you want them to take advantage of canonical URLs, simply edit the schedule and enable the option manually.
Give it a try, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!