If you have two different <base> tags on a page, the incorrect <base> directive needs to be removed to prevent sending conflicting signals to search engines.
HTML standards only allow a single <base> tag on a page.
Since the <base> tag is used by relative URLs, the presence of multiple, different <base> tags leads to conflicting directives to search engines and browsers on how relative URLs should be referenced.
As Mozilla Developers say, “There can be only one <base> element in a document.”
The <base> tag lets you specify a default path for all relative URLs on the page. So, you’ll need to evaluate which tag to keep, and which to get rid of.
Check each of the <base> tags and work with your tech team to find and remove any incorrect versions from your CMS or page templates.
Here’s an example of two conflicting <base> tags within a page’s code:
<base href="https://seoautomation.io/">
<base href="https://www.seoclarity.net/">
One of these will need to be deleted. Again, you can remove them via your CMS or page template — if you have the necessary edit permissions. If you don't, the dev team should be able to remove the extra tags.
You can remove the incorrect <base> directive at scale across thousands of pages with SEO execution platform ClarityAutomate.
Since the <base> tag is an HTML element, start by selecting “Code” in ClarityAutomate.
Different <base> tags on a page means one (or more!) needs to be deleted.
The last step is to specify which <base> tag will be deleted. Then, it’s time to push your changes live and see the optimization happen in real-time.
With ClarityAutomate, the incorrect <base> tag can easily be deleted from the page’s HTML.