Starting in July, some sites are seeing an increase in canonical pages errors shown in Google Search Console, with Google choosing different canonical pages than the ones declared by the website. In most cases, Google’s chosen canonical pages don’t make sense. It does look like this issue has resolved, but I thought it was worth writing about as many may be confused.
Hello @Marie_Haynes . As of July 12, there is an increase in canonicals chosen by Google, which, for me, i think is wrong 🤔. Any reference of this case to compare with any other case? The pages are totally different products and manufacturers. The content pages does not match🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/jXDNTPrjC8
— Rafa Martin 👽🖖 (@rafainatica) August 29, 2023
Rafa Martin brought the situation to my attention. Many people replied saying they were having the same issue.
It was suggested that a Javascript issue could be causing Google to see the pages differently, but this does not seem to be happening.
Search Console’s list of top linked pages is also showing unusual results, with pages having just one internal link being shown with tens of thousands. This suggests Google is incorrectly canonicalizing many pages to the homepage.
The issue is also affecting image and video search, with Google selecting images and videos from the wrongly canonicalized pages rather than more relevant results.
Overall, it appears Google has started incorrectly canonicalizing many pages on the site to the homepage, leading to issues with search performance and relevancy.
He is not the only one with this issue.
We are
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 29, 2023
Seeing a lot of this. Google seems to be picking up a lot of weird urls in the last 3-6 months for clients across different categories. Many of them are advertising urls or hubspot
— David Bell (@dbellgo) August 31, 2023
Yep, verry large website with good Authority, one of the biggest grocery stores in UK. Has millions of urls attributed different canonicals from what we set.
— Melon Usck (@MelonUsck) August 29, 2023
We do, and pages are getting deindexed
— A D (@Art_mov) August 29, 2023
Yep, happening here too.
— Chris Gerber (@chrisgerberseo) August 31, 2023
According to John Mueller this issue affected a small number of sites and “things are settling down now.”
I think there were some weird things for a small number of sites around canonicalization, but not enough to merit making a post. It sounds like things are settling down now.
— John #InternalLinkBuilder #LinksLinksLinks #Right? (@JohnMu) September 4, 2023
Rafa indicated on Mastodon that the warnings are now clearing out of GSC and this problem seems to be resolving. I decided to post this regardless as I think a lot of people were confused!
