Inspect Canonical vs Robots Exclusion Checker (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Inspect Canonical if

• Fits if you check canonicals page by page while browsing a site
• Works for developers confirming canonical tags after a template change

Look elsewhere if

• Too light for on-page checks, as titles, headings and other tags need another extension
• Skip it if you want a site-wide check, since it reports on one page and doesn't crawl
• Not for you if you browse in Firefox, Safari or Edge, as it's listed for Chrome only
• Watch out: the developer hasn't identified itself as a trader, so EU consumer rights don't apply

Pick Robots Exclusion Checker if

• Fits if you need to know why a page isn't being crawled or indexed
• Works for checking at a glance whether a site blocks AI crawlers

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you're not on Chrome, as no other browser is named
• Too light for whole-site audits, since it reports on the URL open in the browser
• Not for you if you want the interface in a language beyond English, German, Spanish and French
• Watch out: the developer hasn't identified itself as a trader, so EU consumer rights don't apply

Inspect Canonical

• It checks the canonical tag and noindex only; titles, headings and other tags need another tool.
• It reports on the page in front of you and does not crawl a site.
• It is listed for Chrome only.
• The developer has not identified itself as a trader, so EU consumer rights do not apply, as the store listing notes.

Robots Exclusion Checker

• It is listed for Chrome only; the store listing names no Firefox, Safari or Edge version.
• It reports on the URL open in the browser, one page at a time, rather than auditing a whole site.
• The developer has not identified itself as a trader, so EU consumer rights do not apply, as the store listing notes.
• The interface comes in English, German, Spanish and French only.

Inspect Canonical

Color-coded status

Green means the canonical points to the current URL, amber that it points elsewhere, and red that something is wrong.

Seven checks in order

Tests for a noindex robots tag, a canonical outside the head, no canonical, several canonicals, a missing href, a different URL, then a correct self-reference.

Noindex conflicts

Flags pages carrying a robots noindex tag, since the listing notes canonical tags are then ignored.

One click to the source

Each message links to the page source, or to the canonical URL when the tag points to another page.

Robots Exclusion Checker

Robots.txt rule finder

When an Allow or Disallow rule affects the current URL, it shows that rule and the full robots.txt with the rule highlighted.

Meta robots and X-Robots-Tag

Flags index, noindex, follow and nofollow directives in the HTML and in the HTTP header, and shows the full header with exclusions marked.

AI bot check

Checks robots.txt against 14 AI bots from 6 companies, covering training, search indexing and live browsing, and adds an AI label to the icon when any are blocked.

Canonical mismatch warnings

Reads canonical tags from the HTML head and the HTTP header and turns the icon amber when the canonical URL differs from the current one.

Nofollow, UGC and sponsored links

Optionally highlights links with those rel values on the page, in colors you choose; off by default on new installs.

Search engine user-agents

Simulate what Googlebot, Googlebot News, Bing or Yahoo may access, chosen in settings. 404 pages are flagged in red.

Inspect Canonical

• Free$0

  All seven canonical checks with color-coded status, free from the Chrome Web Store.

Robots Exclusion Checker

• Free$0

  All six checks, the user-agent switcher and link highlighting, free from the Chrome Web Store.