"Google chose different canonical than user" Issue Can Anyone help?
-
Our site https://www.travelyaari.com/ , some page are showing this error ("Google chose different canonical than user") on google webmasters. status message "Excluded from search results".
Affected on our route page urls mainly. https://www.travelyaari.com/popular-routes-listing
Our canonical tags are fine, rel alternate tags are fine. Can anyone help us regarding why it is happening?
-
Hi Robin,
Nigel has offered some good advice here - the one thing I would also add is that you may want to set up mobile switchboard tags to make it clear to Google that the desktop version is the canonical version for PCs and the mobile version is canonical for mobile.
See more info here: https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/separate-urls#annotations-for-desktop-and-mobile-urls
-
Hi Robin
I have checked a few of those as well and the desktop version is coming up high in search for PC search and the m. for mobile.
Whilst it is true that Google can choose its own canonicals I think in your case both versions are being shown on the appropriate device and I think the only reason you are seeing the error is that on your mobile version you have the PC version tag as canonical so Google is quite rightly picking the m. - See screenshot
Despite what you are seeing it is not affecting your rankings.
I would also make all listings https as you are linking from a secure page to a lot of non-secure pages.
Regards
Nigel
-
Ah OK Robin you didn't make that clear - I'll have a look.
The stuff about title and description is still very valid.
Regards
Nigel
-
Hi, thank you. But the answer mentioned is not a sure shot.
Problem is not with this URL. The URLs listed inside this URL "https://www.travelyaari.com/popular-routes-listing" Kindly open it and find the lists.
Under new Google Search Console: Index Coverage> Not Indexed> Google chose different canonical than user>66k pages affected.
Those URLs are listed there as an issue. I need to know what is exactly "Google chose different canonical than user".
-
Hi Robin
You have two versions of the page, the desktop and mobile.
If you search from mobile the m. comes up
If you search from PC the desktop page comes up.So there really is no problem. It could just be that if someone is searching on mobile then the desktop version is set as the canonical and so Google has rightly chosen the m.
What is sure is that your search results are not being affected.
My advice though would be to change your title to '**Bus Routes In India - Route Directory | **Travelyaari'
This is because the title does not convey the full meaning. Your page would probably move much higher on the page with this title. And the description: "Get Indian Bus Schedules, timetables & information about bus routes in India. Get daily scheduled bus services & bookings on bus routes more than 20000+ - Travelyaari" Get those keywords in there!
I hope this helps
Regards Nigel
-
Hi,
Please check this old thread on the same (Ruth's reply).
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/google-ignoring-canonical-and-choosing-its-own
Hope this helps!!
Thanks
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
-
Is this thumbtack.com pop-up modal allowed by Google?
When you click on a Thumbtack organic result, there's a pop-up modal on the landing page. Is this allowed by Google? E.g. Go to these SERPS and click on the first Thumbtack result. The landing page has this modal appear. Is this likely to hurt their rankings?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RealSelf1 -
Does Google crawl and index dynamic pages?
I've linked a category page(static) to my homepage and linked a product page (dynamic page) to the category page. I tried to crawl my website using my homepage URL with the help of Screamingfrog while using Google Bot 2.1 as the user agent. Based on the results, it can crawl the product page which is a dynamic. Here's a sample product page which is a dynamic page(we're using product IDs instead of keyword-rich URLs for consistency):http://domain.com/AB1234567 Here's a sample category page: http://domain.com/city/area Here's my full question, does the spider result (from Screamingfrog) means Google will properly crawl and index the property pages though they are dynamic?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow20130 -
What penalty would cause this traffic drop (Google Analytic Screenshot)
This ecommerce site was hit (mostly) slowly by updates but there is nothing in GWT. Below is the graph. Keep in mind that most of our traffic is return customers, so the drops don't look dramatic, but they are. "New Visitors" doesn't show the drop. This is a "Daily" Google Analytics setting. The drop I've circled is May 23-May 24, 2013. It was a huge hit in non-return customers. This graph is "Unique Visitors" I don't know why the "New Visitors" graph is not showing the dip Although we had some big drops, a lot of the drop was gradual. Any help in identifying what could be causing the problem is appreciated. ga.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Google Disavow and Penalty lifted please help?
We disavowed 80% of our backlink profile due to our last SEO building cheap nasty links and filed a reconsideration requested (we had the Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to http://www.xxx.co.uk penalty for a year from the 24<sup>th</sup> march 2012 but thought it best to clean up before round 2 – even though we had no real penalty and we dd some decent link building that moved us up). We then received a successful penalty lifted note (on the 22<sup>nd</sup> of May 2013) but our rankings dropped (due to the crap links propping us up) since then we have built a fair few high quality links but our rankings do not seem to be moving much if at all (7 weeks clear now). has anyone had any experience with the above (are we in a sandbox type situation). Thank you for your time Thanks Bob
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
href="#" and href="javascript.void()" links. Is there a difference SEO wise?
I am currently working a site re-design and we are looking at if href="#" and href="javascript.void()" have an impact on the site? We were initially looking at getting the links per page down but I am thinking that rel=nofollow is the best method for this. Anyone had any experience with this? Thanks in advanced
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | clickermediainc0 -
Competitor using "unatural inbound links" not penalized??!
Since Google's latest updates, I think it would be safe to say that building links is harder. But i also read that Google applies their latest guidelines retro-actively. In other words, if you have built your ilnking profile on a lot of unnatural links, with spammy anchor text, you will get noticed and penalized. In the past, I used to use SEO friendly directories and "suggest URL's" to build back links, with keyword/phrase anchor text. But I thought that this technique was frowned upon by Google these days. So, what is safe to do? Why is Google not penalizing the competitor? And bottom line what is considered to be "unnatural link building" ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs20101 -
Google Preferred Agency???
I just stumbled upon an SEO company's website that says they are a 'Google Preferred Agency'. This isn't just a line of copy on the site, it's featured prominently on the site, and they use the Google logo as well. I've never heard of a 'Google Preferred Agency'. One would think that even if there was such a thing, that it would involve a link back to a profile page on Google like they do with AdWords/Analytics partners... Am I missing something, or is this company doing something a little shady? I don't want to toss the name of the company out there because I don't want to publicly bash them.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | stevefidelity0 -
Multiple links to different pages from same page
Hey, I have an opportunity to get listed in a themed directory page, that has a high mozRank of 4+ and a high mozTrust of 5+. Would it be better to just have one link from that page going to one of my internal product category pages, or take advantage of the 'sitelinks' they offer, that allows me to have an additional 5 anchor text links to 5 other pages? I've attached an example. sitelinks.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JerDoggMckoy0