Rankelle

Conflicting canonical tags

The page declares one canonical URL in its HTML and a different one in its response headers. The canonical tag tells search engines which URL is the real one when several show the same content; two conflicting answers means Google picks for itself.

How to fix it

Remove one of them so a single canonical URL is declared.

When it is not a problem

This usually comes from two systems that both believe they own canonicals, typically a CDN or plugin adding a header while the template writes a tag. Removing one is the fix; deciding which owns it is the actual work.

How Rankelle handles it

  • SeverityWarning. It costs traffic or clarity without stopping anything, which is where most real work lives.
  • DetectionDetected on a single page while crawling it, then grouped with the other pages under the same URL pattern.
  • GroupingEvery page with this finding under the same URL pattern becomes one cause, with a confidence taken from how much of the pattern is affected. 400 of 400 is a template; 6 of 14 is phrased as a question.
  • LandingThe affected URLs stay under cheap watch. When this finding is gone from all of them, the fix is marked landed without anyone reporting the deploy.
  • VerdictAt landing, comparable untouched URLs are frozen as a control set. Twenty-eight days later the two are compared, and the fix can come back as having done nothing.

Try it on your own site, free

No card, and the free tier does not expire — the first verdict takes about six weeks to arrive.