What is Canonicalization in Web Development?

Canonicalization is the process of converting a URL to its standard form, which makes it easier to compare and manage URLs. It involves removing any unnecessary information from the URL, such as query parameters and fragment identifiers, and replacing them with a single slash at the end of the URL. This helps to ensure that all URLs are in the same format and can be easily compared and managed.

For example, the following two URLs are equivalent and can be canonicalized to:

* http://example.com/products?sort=price&limit=10
* http://example.com/products?sort=price&limit=10#reviews

Both of these URLs have the same information, but the second URL has a fragment identifier (#reviews) that is not necessary for the URL to function properly. By removing this fragment identifier and adding a single slash at the end of the URL, we can canonicalize it to:

* http://example.com/products?sort=price&limit=10/

This standardized form of the URL makes it easier to compare and manage URLs, as well as improve the performance of web applications by reducing the number of requests made to the server.