Sep 24, 2020
Google is selecting unrelated URLs as canonical - Posts not getting indexed
Hello everyone,
Starting 22nd September, Google has started selecting completely unrelated URLs as canonical URLs. My canonical URLs are properly defined everywhere, but Google is still picking incorrect URLs.
Error is "Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical".
Please find the screenshots here.
I have checked the server configuration, backend, and frontend. There are no issues anywhere.
As a result, our new posts have stopped indexing. Some old posts have also disappeared. Our traffic has tanked.
Here are some examples:
Canonical for the above three examples is a completely unrelated article linked here. Yes, same canonical for the above three articles.
- Example 4 and its Canonical. Again completely unrelated.
- Example 5 and its Canonical. The subject is Microsoft Surface in both posts, but the topics are very different.
- Example 6 and its Canonical. Again completely unrelated.
- Example 7 and its Canonical. Again completely unrelated.
There are more examples. The problem is yet to reflect in Console's Coverage data, which was last updated on 22nd when the problem started. I'll share the screenshot of the coverage once the data is updated.
Update 5: The bug has been acknowledged by Google and pages are coming back. Thank you all!
Update 4: More than 1500 posts have been deindexed over the course of three days (including today). Please help, it's getting out of control.
Update 3: More than one thousand posts have been deindexed over the course of two days. I request urgent assistance, please.
Update 2: Many old posts have got deindexed, including top posts.
Update 1: There's now a visible drop in pages detected under Mobile Usability, AMP, and Breadcrumbs - Screenshot
Can someone please look into it or is there any way I could contact Google?
Our traffic is dropping and I'm afraid the site will be completely deindexed if this is not resolved.
I have checked everything on my end and all is normal. There are no technical issues:
- - Scanned site using Google's AMP, mobile, rich snippets, etc testing tools. No issues.
- - I used request indexing option, but it didn't work.
- - Cleared Google Cloud and Sucuri cache and resubmitted the sitemap.
- - Checked theme, plugins and other files for any recent modifications. No files were modified.
- - Scanned the site using a malware scanner. No issues.
- - Cleared, disabled caching. Turned off AMP and Disqus comments for two new articles, but that also didn't help.
Please help.
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Last edited Oct 6, 2020
All Replies (12)
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020
For our site too the issue seems to have started on September 22. Our page is Online Radio service and we have multiple channels on our site. We don't post new articles frequently.
It seems that Google has started selecting our smaller pages (which get less traffic) as canonical URLs for our most popular pages. Basically our most popular URLs have disappeared from Google.
This is quite a critical issue for us.
Last edited Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 26, 2020
For example: We have a product category page of ceiling fans. Google has now selected the canonical as to a brand page.
Its happened to about 300 of our pages.
All of a sudden there i all these weird referring pages when you do a url inspection in search conole.
For example: We were on wordpress 5 years ago and we moved to shopify and in search console a lot of the referring pages are from our old wordpress site?? Its very strange?
Sep 26, 2020
Sep 26, 2020
Sep 26, 2020
Sep 26, 2020
Also, console data just got updated with new coverage details - you may want to check that.
Sep 28, 2020
This problem is hard.
If I have time, can I perform a "URL inspection" at the following URL?
https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/04/14/smarter-messaging-experience-now-rolling-linkedin-users-desktop/
I've been following since you asked John.
Initially, Canonical wasn't working, as the AMP version became primary.
Currently, AMP indexes are being deleted in new order.
I think Google is confused.
I think it's better to wait for a while than to deal with it without knowing the cause.
Thank you.
Sep 28, 2020
Sure, you can.
I have seen sometimes Google is indexing the AMP page and ignoring the primary page with "Discovered - Currently not indexed" error.
I am not seeing canonical error for new pages but most of them don't get indexed because of Discovered - Currently not indexed error. Old pages are pending recrawl. Crawl rate has dropped dramatically.
Oct 2, 2020
Is Google's problem applicable?
You need to watch the thread.
>There’s no action to take with these issues on the part of site owners.
>We apologize for the issues here and are working rapidly to resolve them.
>We’ll update this thread as each is corrected.