Duplicated: Google has chosen a different canonical version than the one declared by the user

Hi everyone,

I’m encountering an issue where Google has selected a different canonical URL than the one I declared in my HTML code, and the two pages in question don’t seem very similar at all.The page is only 2-3 months old, and I’m wondering if it could be a crawling issue, where Google hasn't fully indexed or understood my pages yet. Is this something that might be due to issues with my site, like incorrect canonical tags or HTML errors? Or could this be more of a problem with how Google is crawling and interpreting my pages?


I’d love to know if anyone else has had a similar issue and how to troubleshoot whether it’s a site problem or something on Google’s side.


Thanks for your help!

rox94 said:

Hi everyone,

I’m encountering an issue where Google has selected a different canonical URL than the one I declared in my HTML code, and the two pages in question don’t seem very similar at all.The page is only 2-3 months old, and I’m wondering if it could be a crawling issue, where Google hasn't fully indexed or understood my pages yet. Is this something that might be due to issues with my site, like incorrect canonical tags or HTML errors? Or could this be more of a problem with how Google is crawling and interpreting my pages?


I’d love to know if anyone else has had a similar issue and how to troubleshoot whether it’s a site problem or something on Google’s side.


Thanks for your help!

Click to expand...

Google sometimes ignores the canonical tag if it thinks another version of the page is more relevant based on signals like internal linking, content duplication, or user engagement. First, check if your canonical tag is correctly placed and matches the declared URL. Then, inspect how your internal links are structured—if they point to the wrong version too often, Google might favor it. Also, verify in Search Console if Google has indexed the right version. If the issue persists, try adding a noindex tag on the unwanted version to force Google to prioritize your declared canonical page.

This may be due to problems on your site, such as incorrect canonical tags or HTML errors. It's also possible that Google hasn't fully indexed your pages yet or has misinterpreted their content. It is recommended to check the canonical tags and correct any errors, as well as give Google more time for full indexing.

rox94 said:

The page is only 2-3 months old, and I’m wondering if it could be a crawling issue, where Google hasn't fully indexed or understood my pages yet.

Click to expand...

Both pages should've been crawled to get this,

rox94 said:

Is this something that might be due to issues with my site, like incorrect canonical tags or HTML errors? Or could this be more of a problem with how Google is crawling and interpreting my pages?

Click to expand...

Not technical problems for sure, you can check the declared canonical tag in GSC and page(s) source(s),
How much different are the pages from each other? Do they have similar titles, parts of the content, etc...?

The pages that Search Console considers duplicate are pages from an ecommerce site where some pages have similar products. For example, I may have Adidas shoes and yellow Adidas shoes. Both URLs would feature similar products, however, the title, H1, H2, and text content are completely different from each other.

rox94 said:

The pages that Search Console considers duplicate are pages from an ecommerce site where some pages have similar products. For example, I may have Adidas shoes and yellow Adidas shoes. Both URLs would feature similar products, however, the title, H1, H2, and text content are completely different from each other.

Click to expand...

Well, it's one of the ways that Google algo screws things up,
Your best bet would be to try to make the page(s) more unique, as much as possible to manipulate their algo and fix the problem,
Make sure each of the page(s) have a unique description, including the product(s) description(s), metadata, schemas, etc...
Try to add more unique contextual content the main page(s) content, change pictures so each page has unique ones, etc...
The same applies to the overall website SILO and URL slugs, avoid PHP parameters (ex: /adidas?color=yellow), and use proper internal links,

After doing so, request crawling/indexing again in GSC to make sure the page(s) get recrawled and fixes take effect,
That might take some time, it won't be fixed overnight, give it some time, and keep working on the website