You probably stick with an important search console warning like ”Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag.” Don’t panic. Here are four great ways in which you can easily resolve your problem.
But before the resolution, you need to know: What is a canonical problem, and why your search console is showing the warning “Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag”?
What is a canonical problem?
Multiple versions of the same content on your blog create a canonical issue (in the search console), making it difficult for search engines to decide which version to show in search results.
What is a canonical tag?
A canonical tag is a piece of HTML code that is added to the page to identify the preferred version. If there are multiple online ) on the same page,
The canonical tag tells search engines which version of a website is the original and which are duplicates or copies.
What is the effect of the canonical problem?
If you own a website or work in digital marketing, you may be familiar with duplicate content. A canonical problem is a prevalent issue that many websites face.
Especially those who frequently post duplicate content. Duplicate content occurs when the same content is released on multiple website pages.
This can lead to a variety of issues, including:
- The website owner will face an unpleasant customer experience.
- Canonical problems reduced the search engine rankings.
- The number of visitors to the website may be reduced.
- Search algorithms impose penalties for duplicate content.
Why is “Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag” shown?
A website may have canonical issues for a variety of reasons.
- One of the most prevalent is when a website tracks information such as user behaviour or referral sources using parameters in the URL.
These parameters can generate multiple versions of the same content, which can confuse search engines and cause them to show the incorrect version of the content in search results.
- Another cause of canonical issues is when a website has multiple versions of the same material for various devices, such as desktops and mobile.
These versions may have different URLs, leading search engines to treat them as separate pages and possibly penalize the site for duplicate content.
What is the use of canonical tags for SEO?
A canonical tag helps website owners consolidate their website content and improve their search engine rankings by reducing the chances of duplicate content penalties.
How do I solve “Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag”? with the 4 Great Ways?
The good news is that there are several ways to resolve canonical problems. To ensure that search engines display your page, there are four great ways to “Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag”. Here are some of the most effective methods:
01. Use the rel=canonical tag
To resolve the issue, you can use a canonical tag in your HTML code. The canonical tag tells search engines which version of the content is the preferred or primary version. Here are the steps to implement the canonical tag:
- Identify the primary URL for each piece of content on your blog. This is the version of the content that you want to appear in search results.
- Add a canonical tag to the header of the HTML code for each page. The tag should point to the primary URL for that piece of content.
For example, if you have two versions of the same blog post at these URLs:
- https://www.example.com/blog/post-title
- https://www.example.com/blog/post-title?utm_source=google
You would add the following canonical tag to the header of the HTML code for both pages:
Copy Code
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/blog/post-title">the code will confirm to the search engines that the primary URL for this post is: https://www.example.com/blog/post-title
and the other copies of posts or articles should be ignored.
After adding the “Canonical tag” to your blog’s HTML code, you can monitor the reflection of the changes in the search engine and secure the correct version of your content.
02. Use 301 redirects
Resolving canonical problems through 301 redirects is another option. The 301 redirect is a permanent move from one URL to another.
It notifies search engines that the content has recently been permanently relocated to a new location and that they should properly update their index.
Simply transfer the duplicate URL to the primary URL using server-side redirects to use a 301 redirect.
As a result, the user or search engine will be instantly redirected to the primary URL when they try to access the duplicate URL.
Due to the avoidance of duplicate content penalties, the appropriate form of content is guaranteed to show up in search results.
03. Use parameter handling in Google Search Console
If your website contains a lot of duplicate posts or pages, you can solve your problem by using the Google Search Console URL parameters tool.
This tool lets you inform Google which website parameters should be ignored when crawling your sites. You can decrease the number of duplicate pages on your website and improve your search engine rankings by doing so.
To use the Google Search Console URL parameters tool to solve your canonical problems, you can follow these steps:
- Log in to your -“Google Search Console account”.
- Select the site which you want to manage.
- Go to the Left-side >Menu > Click on “Crawl”
- Next, Go to > “URL Parameters.” and Click there.
- Click on “Configure URL Parameters.”
- Select the parameter you want to change and choose the appropriate setting.
04. Consolidate duplicate content
If anyone’s website contains a huge amount of duplicate content, he needs to combine all those posts into a single post.
To combine all posts into a single post the website’s owner can use pagination, canonical tags, or 301 redirects
This guarantees that search engines will only index one version of the content, which can enhance search results and lower the risk of identical content penalties.
Conclusion:
A canonical problem is a regular website problem when a blogger regularly publishes too many articles in a blog. However, you can effectively address these issues and improve your search engine position by using the following strategies:
- canonical tags,
- 301 redirects,
- rel=alternate tags with hreflang attributes, and
- the Google Search Console URL parameters tool.
It is very important to monitor a website to see the canonical issues. To avoid the penalty and search engines’ negative results, one needs to regularly monitor the website’s errors and try to fix those issues.
