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Setting the canonical URL for a blog post via javascript - check my work

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Hi all, I've been trying for a few months to find a way to cross link a blog post to another website via the canonical URL. I didn't have any luck finding an existing solution. So, I wound up coming with the following script inside a blog post page. In the script, I find the existing/default Squarespace canonical URL and replace it with the external blog post link on page load.

For my fellow programmers out there, what flaws does this approach have? Will this get the benefits of a canonical URL from a SEO perspective? Or because the page has to be loaded will it not work? 
 

<html>
  <script>
    function updateCanonicalURL() {
      // Get the <head> element
      const headElement = document.querySelector('head');

      // Find the existing <link> tag with rel="canonical"
      const canonicalLinkTag = headElement.querySelector('link[rel="canonical"]');

      // Update the href attribute of the <link> tag
      if (canonicalLinkTag) {
        canonicalLinkTag.setAttribute('href', 'https://www.example.com/new-page');
      } else {
        // If the <link> tag doesn't exist, create it and append it to the <head> element
        const newCanonicalLinkTag = document.createElement('link');
        newCanonicalLinkTag.setAttribute('rel', 'canonical');
        newCanonicalLinkTag.setAttribute('href', 'https://www.example.com/new-page');
        headElement.appendChild(newCanonicalLinkTag);
      }
    
    }
      // Attach the event listener to window.onload
    window.onload = function () {
      updateCanonicalURL();
    };
    
  </script>
</html>

 

From testing it out, it does update the HTML header on page load correctly. Thanks all for any input and advice!

Edited by DanielleS
Updated some wording.
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