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        5. Google-selected canonical: the homepage?

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        Google-selected canonical: the homepage?

        Local Website Optimization
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        • Andreea-M
          Andreea-M Subscriber last edited by

          Hi guys,
          I checked the product pages on our website with Google Search Console (URL Inspection), and the majority appear as
          "URL is not on Google"
          Coverage: "Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical", and 
          Google-selected canonical: the homepage of the website (for all product pages)

          Our product pages are not identical to the homepage (content-wise), besides the top menu, header and footer, so how could I use the canonical tag in this case? I wouldn't want that the product pages to be seen as duplicates of the homepage.

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • effectdigital
            effectdigital last edited by

            That is a very weird situation and I think that, adding some canonical tags may not meet with your expectations. If Google have strong views about what is / is not a canonical URL, they will usually override canonical tags anyway (which is usually when you get the error you have described). I think we'd really need to see some examples of actual URLs to help you

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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