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Alternate page with proper canonical

Alternate page with proper canonical

The canonical points at another URL, and Google is respecting that.

This is the expected result for a copy that correctly points at the preferred URL. Google is not failing. It is doing what the tag says.

Change it only if the canonical is wrong. A tag that always points at the homepage, or at a URL that itself redirects, will park real pages in this bucket.

The preferred URL should return 200, include a self-referencing canonical, and be the one in the sitemap.

What to check

  • Open the canonical target and confirm it is the page you want indexed.
  • If this URL is the real page, change the canonical to itself.
  • If this URL is a copy, leave the canonical and stop expecting this address to rank.

Fix prompt

Example prompt

This URL is an alternate with a canonical pointing elsewhere. If that target is correct, leave it. If this URL should be indexed, set a self-referencing canonical in the server HTML and return HTTP 200. Do not call an indexing API.

Check a URL · Crawlers · Glossary

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