Yoast SEO Canonical URLs - API documentation

To change the canonical URL that Yoast SEO generated for a URL programmatically, you can use the wpseo_canonical filter.

Change the canonical URL

For example, the following code would change the canonical on a page with ID 12345:

/**
 * Filters the canonical URL.
 *
 * @param string $canonical The current page's generated canonical URL.
 *
 * @return string The filtered canonical URL.
 */
function prefix_filter_canonical_example( $canonical ) {
  if ( is_page( 12345 ) ) {
    $canonical = 'https://example.com/canonical-url/';
  }

  return $canonical;
}

add_filter( 'wpseo_canonical', 'prefix_filter_canonical_example' );

Remove the canonical URL

If you want to completely remove the canonical URL from a page, simply return false for that page, like so:

/**
 * Filter the canonical URL.
 *
 * @param string $canonical The current page's generated canonical URL.
 *
 * @return bool|string The filtered canonical URL or false when we want to remove it.
 */
function prefix_filter_canonical_example( $canonical ) {
  if ( is_page( 12345 ) ) {
    return false;
  }

  return $canonical;
}

add_filter( 'wpseo_canonical', 'prefix_filter_canonical_example' );

Or to remove it from all pages, simply do:

add_filter( 'wpseo_canonical', '__return_false' );