An investigation was made of the domain configurations in uniaxial anisotropic permalloy pole structures for integrated thin‐film heads utilizing the SEM type‐II magnetic contrast mode. The technique was compared with other viable methods including Kerr magneto‐optics and the ferrofluid colloid. Type II was found to be superior for dynamic and high‐magnification studies. ac demagnetized, partially saturated, and remanent configurations were observed in poles of different geometries, after magnetization in both easy and hard directions. A comparison was made with the domain configuration in double‐layer permalloy structures. In the study of complete integrated heads, only the top pole domain configuration was observable using the ferrofluid colloid method, while with 200‐keV type II, the complete magnetic circuit domain structure was imaged. The effect of subsequent head processing on easy axis alignment was found to be minimal.