An SEO professional asked John Mueller during a hangout about different canonicals.
Their situation was: let’s say if there’s a particular page, which is an error in Google Search Console.
And sometimes, Google might pick something, perhaps a different page than what a user has defined.
In this regard, how can they provide the correct signals to Google when it comes to selecting the right page at the canonical?
They believe there is an error, if Google chooses a different canonical than what the user had already defined on the page.
In order to make sure, because the pages have the correct canonical tags, and the coverage report is different from what the URL inspection tool is currently showing.
For example, for a few URLs, it does show what the user has correctly defined. But, for a few pages, it may show that Google has picked something different than the self canonical tags.
The SEO pro mentioned that this is definitely related to the job industry where many HR representatives try to put in the same job description for a particular job-specific query.
So, this isn’t something that is controlled by the SEO pro, or controlled by the team.
But, from the employer’s side, the job title remains the same.
The job description, however, is copied and pasted for several of the pages.
It’s likely that there is a duplicate content issue as well. But, the SEO pro does not know how to deal with these types of problems for job indices..
John explained that yes, making sure that these pages are significantly unique is something that is almost a requirement here. In the sense that, if Google thinks these pages are the same, then they’re trying to do the SEO professional a favor by just picking one URL to index it.
And he imagines that the SEO pro probably doesn’t like that Google is trying to help them in this regard.
But, this is something where, if Google thinks that these are essentially the same pages, then they are saying “Well, you accidentally submitted multiple pages with the same content, and we tried to fix that for you.”
John then elaborated that the best way to avoid that part is really to make sure that these pages are significantly unique.
And if this is something that is based on what people are submitting to your website, then perhaps there is a way for you to add some kind of a pre-submit check where you say, “Well, this description that you gave me is the same one you gave me yesterday for a different job, so you would want to push back on this level.”
And if the pages are, for the most part, exactly the same, then it can happen that Google will fold them together.
You also see this when you have an e-commerce site, where you’re active in multiple countries, and the product descriptions and products themselves are exactly the same, you just have a different phone number on the bottom of the page for the individual country address, then this is also one of those situations where Google’s systems will say “Well, this page is essentially the same. We don’t need to index all of these variations.”
This happens at approximately the 41:25 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 6 41:25
So I have a question. Let’s say if there is a particular page, which is, you know, like, there is an error in Google Search Console, which is like, you know, sometimes Google might pick something, perhaps a different page, than what a user has defined. So in that regard, how can we provide the correct signals to Google, when it comes to selecting the right page at the canonical?
I think there is an error, of duplicate let Google choose different canonical that the user defined. So in order to make sure, because the pages have the correct canonical tags, and the coverage report is different than what the URL inspection tool is currently showing. A few URLs, it shows what the user has correctly defined. But for a few pages, it shows that Google has picked something different canonical tags.
This is definitely related to a job industry where a lot of HRs try to put in the same job description for a particular job-specific query. So this is not something which is controlled by me or controlled by the team. But from the employer side the job title remains the same. But job description is copy pasted for several of the pages. There could be a duplicate content issue as well. But I don’t know how to make sure, for specifically job indices, how to deal with such problems.
John 42:52
Yeah, I think, first of all, kind of making sure that these pages are significantly unique is something that is almost like a requirement there. In the sense that if we think these pages are essentially the same, then we’re trying to do you a favor by just picking one URL to index it. And you probably don’t like that, that we’re trying to help you in that regard. And but that’s something where, if we think these are essentially the same pages, then we’re saying, well, like, you accidentally submitted multiple pages with the same content, and we tried to fix that for you.
So the best way to avoid that part is really to make sure that these pages are significantly unique. And if that’s something that is based on what people are submitting to your website, then maybe there’s a way for you to add some kind of a pre-submit check where you say, well, this actually, this description that you gave me is the same one that you gave me yesterday for a different job, kind of to push back on that level, that might be an approach. But essentially, if the pages are for the most part the same, then it can certainly happen that we fold them together.
And you also see this when you have kind of like an e-commerce site, where you’re active in multiple countries, and the product descriptions and the products themselves are exactly the same, you just have a different phone number on the bottom of the page for the individual country address, then, that’s also one of those situations where our systems will say, Well, this page is essentially the same. We don’t need to index all of these variations. So I think that’s kind of the first thing that you need to do.
And in general, with regards to canonicalization, it’s important to keep in mind that there are multiple factors that play a role here. The rel=canonical is one thing. But we also look at things like internal and external links to those pages. We try to see what is listed in a sitemap file, what is listed otherwise, kind of with kind of indirect links on a page with things like structured data. We also look for redirects on the page, if you’re kind of like redirecting from one page to another, then probably the destination page is more relevant. And sometimes we also look at things like which of these URLs looks nicer, or which of these URLs is cleaner.
So in particular, if we have one page with parameters and the other page without parameters, and it’s exactly the same thing, we have similar signals, then we will probably try to pick the cleaner URL. And all of those things need to align. And well, I mean, they don’t need to, but ideally, they would align, so that we can really follow that recommendation. Because what we often see, or sometimes see at least, is that people will put a rel=canonical on a page, but internally, they’ll link to the other version of the page.
And then our systems are like, Well, you say this is your canonical, but within your website, you’re telling us something completely different. Which of these is it, and maybe we’ll just pick this one today. And maybe we will shift over to another one at some point in the future. So with regards to canonicalization, that’s, that’s always really important.
Really making sure, I guess, first of all, for your particular case, is making sure that the content is actually unique, so that we don’t have to do canonicalization. But if we do canonicalization, make sure that you’re giving us all of the signals in the right direction.
