I’ve been noticing this issue in Google Search Console where it says ‘Duplicate, Google chose a different canonical than user.’ I thought I set up my canonicals right, but Google is picking different pages. Any thoughts on what’s causing this?
Yeah, that’s a pretty common issue. Google uses your canonical tag as a suggestion, not a rule. If it finds other signals that conflict with your tag, it might choose a different page to index.
BacklinkBaronBill said:
Yeah, that’s a pretty common issue. Google uses your canonical tag as a suggestion, not a rule. If it finds other signals that conflict with your tag, it might choose a different page to index.
Got it. What kind of signals could mess with the canonical tag?
@H.cole22
It could be stuff like duplicate content across URLs, parameters, or even trailing slashes. Google tries to pick the best version, and sometimes it doesn’t match what you want.
If your content is too similar across different pages, Google might ignore your canonicals and consolidate them into one page. This happens a lot with ecommerce sites where product variants have almost identical content.
@DataDynamo
Ah, makes sense. I do have some variants. Should I just add more unique content to those pages?
H.cole22 said:
@DataDynamo
Ah, makes sense. I do have some variants. Should I just add more unique content to those pages?
Yep, that would help. If you want all the pages to be indexed separately, they need unique content. Otherwise, Google will pick one and flag the rest as duplicates.
If you’re seeing canonical issues across multiple pages, check if you’ve got any chains or loops. Sometimes people accidentally point one page to another, and it forms a chain where Google gets confused.
@Johnas
Chains? What do you mean by that?
GuyBolding said:
@Johnas
Chains? What do you mean by that?
It’s when one page canonicals to another, which then canonicals to a third page, and so on. Google doesn’t like that—it prefers a straight path to the main page. You can check for chains with tools like Ahrefs’ Site Audit.
I’ve seen this happen with international sites too. Google sometimes picks the wrong page if you’re using the same content across different countries, even if you’ve set up hreflang tags.
KeywordKaiserKara said:
I’ve seen this happen with international sites too. Google sometimes picks the wrong page if you’re using the same content across different countries, even if you’ve set up hreflang tags.
Yeah, I’ve got sites for US, UK, and AU, but the content is almost the same. How do I make sure Google shows the right version?
@mariona
Hreflang tags should help. They tell Google which version is for which region. But if the content is too similar, you might still see the ‘duplicate, Google chose different canonical’ issue. You can check your hreflang clusters in audit tools to see if anything’s broken.
If you’re running a JavaScript-heavy site, you might have rendering issues. Google sometimes sees the same content across multiple pages if your site isn’t pre-rendering or using server-side rendering.
@brylee
I’m using some JavaScript, but I didn’t think that would affect the canonical tags. Should I be worried?
H.cole22 said:
@brylee
I’m using some JavaScript, but I didn’t think that would affect the canonical tags. Should I be worried?
It depends. If Google can’t see the unique content because of how the JavaScript is loaded, it might think all your pages are the same. You could try pre-rendering or server-side rendering to fix it.