A page may be reachable at /article/ and /article/?utm_source=email. Those URLs can show the same content while serving different analytics purposes. Decide which URL represents the page itself and use it consistently.
Separate tracking from content
- Keep campaign parameters for measurement when needed, but point canonical metadata to the clean article URL.
- Do not strip parameters that genuinely change the content or access state without checking how the application works.
- Link internally to the canonical destination instead of distributing tracked copies throughout the site.
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/en/news/article/">Inspect every variant
Canonical tags are hints, not redirects or access controls. Verify that the clean URL is accessible, self-canonical, and the version you want crawlers to index. Avoid canonicalizing unrelated or substantially different pages together.
Keep parameter handling simple: remove tracking parameters from canonical URLs, preserve meaningful page state, and test the actual rendered head for both forms.