Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical Than User. What It Is, Causes, & How to Fix

The Google Search Console presumption “Duplicate, Google chose antithetic canonical than user” means that Google chose a antithetic URL to scale than the 1 the idiosyncratic selected. This tin hap erstwhile Google finds 2 oregon much pieces of contented connected a tract that are precise akin oregon identical.

The contented volition amusement successful the Page Indexing study successful Google Search Console. This is however it looks.

When I cheque connected 1 of our pages with this issue, I spot that the contented hasn’t been translated yet for either language. It’s inactive successful English, truthful I fishy that we person much of these pages that inactive person the issue. There’s a spot of a hold successful our translation process that causes this issue.

Let’s look astatine what causes the contented and however to fix it.

What causes “duplicate, Google chose antithetic canonical than user”

There are a fewer things that mightiness origin a leafage to beryllium flagged with this issue.

Duplicate oregon akin content

According to Google’s Gary Illyes, 60% of the web is duplicate content.

Google doesn’t privation to store each mentation of each page. They store 1 main mentation of the leafage and past make records of the alternates.

The canonical nexus element, oregon canonical tag, is 1 of ~20 canonicalization signals that Google uses. It’s a hint, and truthful different signals tin archer Google that it’s a antithetic leafage that should really beryllium the indexed mentation of the leafage shown to users.

All of the signals volition consolidate to the indexed mentation of the page, and galore of these different pages volition beryllium flagged arsenic duplicates. If their specified canonical URL doesn’t match, past you’ll spot them with the contented “duplicate, Google chose a antithetic canonical than user.” This isn’t usually an contented and usually won’t interaction rankings, but it whitethorn not beryllium the leafage you similar to be shown.

There whitethorn beryllium respective URLs for the aforesaid content, which leads to duplicate contented issues. This whitethorn beryllium caused by capitalization, trailing slashes, IDs, URL parameters, etc. So each of these may exist:

Another clip you whitethorn spot this contented is if you person an ecommerce store that has galore merchandise variants without having overmuch unsocial content. The merchandise variants whitethorn person self-referencing canonical tags, but Google whitethorn lone scale 1 of the versions of the page.

If you lone privation 1 mentation indexed, you should acceptable a self-referencing canonical and either canonical tags from different versions that notation the main mentation oregon redirect the different versions to the main version.

Check the Duplicates study successful Site Audit. We interruption down which duplicate clusters person canonical tags acceptable and which person issues.

This contented whitethorn besides amusement for planetary websites. Sometimes companies usage the aforesaid contented oregon akin contented for aggregate countries that usage the aforesaid language. For example, companies whitethorn usage the aforesaid oregon akin contented connected pages targeting the US, UK, and AU. Google volition usually scale 1 of these, but acknowledgment to the magic of hreflang tags, they tin inactive swap and amusement the alternate versions successful hunt results.

Those alternate versions usually amusement arsenic “duplicate, Google chose a antithetic canonical than user” successful GSC. Google volition adjacent study postulation conscionable to the canonical mentation successful GSC, adjacent if they’re swapping and showing users the close versions.

Hreflang tags enactment successful pairs to signifier a cluster. We person a clump visualization instrumentality successful Site Audit that shows and tells you what is broken, making it overmuch easier to recognize and explicate than the emblematic spreadsheet.

And sometimes Google conscionable gets it wrong. With syndicated content, Google tin occasionally take the copied contented arsenic the canonical URL alternatively of the original.

Canonical tag mistakes

Similar to what happens with redirects, canonical tags tin besides person chains oregon loops. The other pages whitethorn beryllium classified arsenic “duplicate, Google chose a antithetic canonical than user.”

A canonical concatenation is simply a bid of URLs whose canonical tags constituent to the adjacent URL successful the chain.

You besides whitethorn tally into canonical loops, wherever 1 of the chains points backmost to a leafage that was earlier successful the sequence. This forms an infinite loop.

You tin cheque for these issues successful Site Audit. We amusement them nether the contented “Non-canonical leafage specified arsenic the canonical one,” which appeared connected 1.36% of websites successful our study of 1 cardinal domains.

You mightiness besides spot this contented if you accidentally made a mistake successful your canonical tag, specified arsenic including an other character. Pages whitethorn inactive resolve, but Google whitethorn take your archetypal URL arsenic the canonical URL.

Rendering issues

With JavaScript websites, peculiarly app ammunition models, the archetypal HTML effect whitethorn amusement precise small contented and code. In fact, each leafage connected the tract whitethorn show the aforesaid code, which whitethorn beryllium the nonstop aforesaid arsenic the codification connected immoderate different websites.

If you spot a precocious fig of duplicate pages successful the aforesaid clump successful Site Audit, you whitethorn person this issue.

This tin sometimes origin pages to beryllium treated arsenic duplicates and not instantly spell to rendering. Even worse, the incorrect leafage oregon adjacent the incorrect tract whitethorn amusement successful hunt results. This should resoluteness itself implicit clip but tin beryllium problematic, particularly with newer websites.

How to hole “duplicate, Google chose antithetic canonical than user”

How you hole the contented volition beryllium connected which contented applies to your page.

If your contented is duplicate, marque it much unique

If you person contented that’s the aforesaid oregon duplicate and you privation each of the pages indexed, you’ll person to enactment successful immoderate enactment to marque them much unique. This is communal connected websites with a batch of boilerplate contented with precise small unsocial contented for their pages.

Most of the pages I spot arsenic an contented for our website travel from a hold successful our translation process. We sometimes people pages for different languages earlier they are translated oregon afloat translated, which leads them to beryllium flagged arsenic duplicates. As we construe the pages, the issues are cleared out. Translated pages are not considered duplicates.

If you person canonicalization issues, fix them

For immoderate canonical chains oregon loops, take your preferred mentation of the leafage and marque definite that it, arsenic good arsenic each different versions of the page, references your preferred version.

You whitethorn adjacent privation to usage stronger canonicalization signals to consolidate the pages, specified arsenic a 301 oregon 308 redirect.

If you made immoderate mistakes with your canonical tag (e.g., including an other character) and Google has ignored it, you tin hole the contented by fixing the canonical tag to constituent to the main mentation of the page.

If you person rendering issues, usage a pre-render or SSR

If your occupation is coming from the returned HTML connected your tract each looking the same, you whitethorn privation a pre-rendering oregon server-side rendering (SSR) solution. This volition render the contented of the leafage earlier users oregon bots person it. That contented connected astir sites would see immoderate unsocial contented and should wide up this issue. Talk to your devs if you request to acceptable this up.

Final thoughts

“Duplicate, Google chose antithetic canonical than user” usually happens with duplicate pages, but not always. Usually, Google is trying to support its scale cleanable and not person a clump of duplicates, oregon Google is trying to hole a mistake connected the website.

Have questions? Message maine connected X oregon LinkedIn.