What could cause Google to not honor canonical URLs?
-
I have a strange situation on a website, when I do a Google query of site:example.com all the top indexed results appear to be queries that users can perform on the website. So any random term the user searches for on the website for some reason is causing the search result page to get indexed - like example.com/search/query/random-keywords
However, the search results page has a canonical tag on it that points to example.com/search, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything. Any thoughts or ideas why this could be happening?
-
Hi there,
First of all, its a mistake to think that when searching with _site: _operator, the first results are the most important nor the more relevant. Google has said a few times that we shouldn't rely that much on what that search in terms of what's being shown.
Blocking search results with robots.txt wont be of help, as it will not remove already indexed pages and cant prevent for new pages to be indexed (if there's an external link to a robots.txt blocked page, google can still index it) it'll only prevent Googlebot from discovering new ones FROM YOUR SITE.
Again, i'd try to dig deeper to understand where are the links to internal searches that google is finding. Googlebot will not do any search in your site.
The thing with GSC, might be related to quite a few reasons. I cant say much because I don't know any more specifics, but from what you are telling me it looks like you are getting impressions in searches that you don't relate to your site and that land on pages that google is noindexing. Yeah im repeating the obvious, hehe.
In my experience, Google can have these strange behaviours. You know, there are cases when a page is canonicalized, but it can still be shown in SERPS. Dont ask me why, but it happens. It takes a little time to google fully replace it with the correct one.
I'd wait a little longer to see how Google is handling them.I don't know if im helping you.
it kinda took me a few minutes to understand/process what you wrote and come up with an answer.Please, feel free ask again or comment on my reply if I misunderstood something.
Best luck,
Gaston -
Hi here's some more background info on this situation that makes it even stranger. I can perform some pretty specific searches on Google where these indexed search result pages show up. And I can look in Google Search Console under the performance section and see that those pages receive impressions and clicks. However, if I inspect the URL, Search Console says it is not included in Google's index, and the reason it gives under indexing is because it says it is honoring the canonical URL. So search console is saying it isn't indexed because of the canonical, but I can do searches and find that exact URL in the index. Any ideas what this could be from?
-
Hi Gaston,
Thanks for the response. I can confirm that the example, /search and /search?q=foo are pretty much identical. However that may not always be the case, only when a user searches for something that would return no results. So, a website that sells widgets, /search and /search?q=widgets would not be identical, and in that case it would make sense that Google would not honor the canonical link. What's really strange is if I search google for the site: operator of the domain, the top pages are not user queries for things that make sense. The top indexed pages are random, non-relevant user searches.
I do not have a way with this system to control noindex tags on these search result pages. The only thing I could do is take the nuclear option and just block it all with robots.txt using wildcards. But that means no search result pages would get indexed, relevant or not.
-
Hi there,
in my experience, when google doesn't honor Canonicals, is because pages arent similar.
In its definition, canonical are there for two or more pages that have the same content.If you are finding it problematic, i'd suggest to use noindex tags for that search pages.
I'd investigate If there are links pointing to those internal search pages, as its not common for google to discover search pages.Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google?
Hi, we re-branded and launched a new website in February 2016. In June we saw a steep drop in the number of URLs indexed, and there have continued to be smaller dips since. We started an account with Moz and found several thousand high priority crawl errors for duplicate pages and have since fixed those with canonical tags. However, we are still seeing the number of URLs indexed drop. Do URLs with canonical tags get indexed by Google? I can't seem to find a definitive answer on this. A good portion of our URLs have canonical tags because they are just events with different dates, but otherwise the content of the page is the same.
Technical SEO | | zasite0 -
Google Cache showing a different URL
Hi all, very weird things happening to us. For the 3 URLs below, Google cache is rendering content from a different URL (sister site) even though there are no redirects between the 2 & live page shows the 'right content' - see: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/tours/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://giltedgeafrica.com/about/team/ We also have the exact same issue with another domain we owned (but not anymore), only difference is that we 301 redirected those URLs before it changed ownership: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/Kenya/2 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.preferredsafaris.com/accommodation/Namibia/5 I have gone ahead into the URL removal Tool and got denied for the first case above ("") and it is still pending for the second lists. We are worried that this might be a sign of duplicate content & could be penalising us. Thanks! ps: I went through most questions & the closest one I found was this one (http://moz.com/community/q/page-disappeared-from-google-index-google-cache-shows-page-is-being-redirected) but it didn't provide a clear answer on my question above
Technical SEO | | SouthernAfricaTravel0 -
Google Publisher status
Hi all, I just wondered what the general opinion was with regard getting Google publisher status for medium to large organisations. Lots of our clients write a lot of articles & publications and it would be interesting to get some thoughts on how others view Authorship & in particular Publisher credentials. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | davidmaxwell0 -
Canonical Advice - ?
Hi everyone, I have a bit of problem with duplicate content on a newly launched site and looking for some advice on which pages to canonicalize. Our legacy site had product "information" pages that now 301 to new product information pages. The reason for the legacy having these pages (instead of pages where you can purchase) is because we used our vendors "cart link", which was an iframe inside the website. So in order to get ranked for these products, we created these pages, that had links to the frame where they could buy. The strategy worked, and we got ranked for our products. Now with the new site, we have those same product information pages, but when you click the link to buy, it goes to a page which now is on our actual site, where you can make the purchase, but this page contains the same basic information, though it looks very different. So my question --- the product "information" pages, are the new 301 homes and are the pages with the rank. The purchase pages are new and have no rank, but are essentially duplicate content. Should I put the canonical link element on the purchase page and tell Google to regard the information pages since those are ranked? It just seems weird to me to direct Google away from the place where people can purchase, however, the purchase pages aren't nearly as "pretty" as the information pages are, and wouldn't be the greatest landing pages. We have an automotive site, and the purchase page you have to enter vehicle information. The information page is nicer, and if the visitor is interested, its just one click to get to that page to buy. What to do here? I am fairly new to Moz, and I couldn't determine whether I am permitted to include an example link from our site of what I am referring to. Is that permitted? Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
Technical SEO | | yogitrout1
Kristin0 -
Second URL
Hi We have a .com and a .co.uk Main website is .co.uk, we also have a landing page for the .com If we redirect the .com to the .co.uk, will it create duplicate content ... May seem like a silly question, but want to be sure that that the visitors cant access our website at both urls, as that would be duplicate content Thanks in advance John
Technical SEO | | Johnny4B0 -
Pages not indexed by Google
We recently deleted all the nofollow values on our website. (2 weeks ago) The number of pages indexed by google is the same as before? Do you have explanations for this? website : www.probikeshop.fr
Technical SEO | | Probikeshop0 -
Google not visiting my site
Hi my site www.in2town.co.uk which is a lifestyle magazine has gone under a major refit. I am still working on it but it should be ready by the end of this week or sooner but one problem i have is, google is not visiting the site. I took a huge gamble to redo the site, even though before the refit i was getting a few thousand visitors a day, i wanted to make the site better as i was getting google webmaster errors. But now it seems google is not visiting the site. for example i am using sh404sef and i have put friendly url in the site and on the home page it has its name and meta tag but when you look at google it is not giving the site a name. Also it has not visited the site since october 13th Can anyone advise how to encourage google to visit the site please.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
301 an old URL with a ? in the URL?
I am redoing a site and the URL's are changing structure. The client's site was in magento and in the store they would get two URLs, for example: /store/categoryname/productname and /store/categoryname/productname?SID=dslkajsfdoiu947598whouieht983hg98 Do I have to 301 redirect both of these URL's to their new counterpart? Both go to the same content but magento seemed to add these SIDs into the navigation and Google has both versions in the index.
Technical SEO | | DanDeceuster0