by hivedigital 5 (3 reviews)

Canonical Attachments

Name: Canonical Attachments
Rating: 5.0 (3 reviews)
Author: hivedigital

Get more information from analytics and higher rankings by utilizing canonical http headers in htaccess for non image media attachments like pdfs.

Canonical Attachments ranks #10,662 among WordPress.org plugins with 300+ active installations, is #1,135 of 6,314 in the Media category, a 5/5 rating from 3 reviews, and was last updated Aug 25, 2025. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 6.8 (Current: 7.1)

v1.8 Current Version v1.8

Updated 1 year ago Last Update on 25 Aug, 2025

Refreshed 6 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#1,135 of 6,314 in Media Top 25% by installs No update in over a year

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#10,662

+32 this week

Active Installs

300+

-11.8%

KW Avg Position

— No change

Downloads

7.3K

+3 today

Support Resolved

— No change

Rating

100%

Review 5 out of 5

5 (3 reviews)

Next Milestone 400

Total Progress 42%

300+ 400+

890

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

Pro

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Rank Changes

Current #10,662

Change

Best #

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

5.0

3 reviews

Overall 100%

2 (67%)

0 (0%)

1 (33%)

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

1 known vulnerability on record · 1 in the last 24 months · checked 1 month ago

Apr 9, 2025 UNPATCHED

Canonical Attachments [canonical-attachments] <= 1.8 (unfixed)

CVE-2025-32543 · No fix released

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Plugin Details

Version: 1.8
Last Updated: Aug 25, 2025
Requires WP: 4.5.1+
Tested Up To: 6.8
PHP Version: N/A
Author: hivedigital

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews: 3
Support Threads: 0
Resolved: 0%

Keywords

attachments canonical canonical tags canonicalize pdf

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners and SEO teams managing PDF and document attachments who want those files tracked properly in analytics. It solves the problem of search engines and analytics tools treating attachment files separately from their parent posts by adding canonical headers via htaccess.

Generates htaccess file for uploads
Adds canonical tags via headers
Dashboard to find missing canonicals
Bulk attach files to posts
Manually add/remove canonical tags
Add canonical URL on upload
Edit htaccess file directly

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Canonical Attachments

No. This plugin only works for wordpress installations on servers running apache, as it is depending on writing the rules to the .htaccess file.

The plugin will need to be able to write to the directory in order to work. When you install the plugin, it will create the .htaccess file with the proper permissions.

As there may be other items in the htaccess file that are important, uninstalling this plugin does not remove the .htaccess file. You will have to do this manually. It is important to note that uninstalling this plugin does not remove any content of the htaccess file. If you wish to remove canonicals, you should use the bulk editor or manually edit the .htaccess file using the editor option. When you remove by manually editing the htaccess file, the associations will still exist in the wordpress database as an option for that media item, but since they are not in the .htaccess file, they will be "useless". This is why it is recommended to use the bulk editor vs. editing htaccess directly.

In some instances there may be files outside of wordpress's database that you wish to canonical, so we wanted to make it accessible for adding those items. The most likely case for this would be if you migrated to wordpress and manually moved a directory or files into the uploads folder vs. uplaoding through wordpress. Future iterations of this plugin might include a way to better manage non wordpress linked media files.

This has nothing to do with our plugin, but occurs when you upload media files when you are not editing / creating a post. The wordpress library has a filter for unattached media items, and you can attach them manually there. Our editor does not require the media item be attached to a post, it just makes it possible to use the bulk feature to attach vs. having to do it one at a time. You can also use the post finder from the "attach media" option in our bulk editor.

This plugin was developed by the good folks at Hive Digital