What Does “Duplicate, Submitted URL Not Selected as Canonical” Mean?
This status typically indicates that you have a duplicate URL or a page with similar content on your website, and Google has chosen the other URL as a preferred page to display.
Although it is not a big issue, it may also cause the not-canonical URL to be removed from the indexing due to coverage issues. So, if you want your page to remain indexed, you will need to fix this issue immediately.
The good news is, fixing this problem is not a tedious task. There are a few things that you can do, which we will discuss in the upcoming sections.
How to Find the Effected Pages?
There are a couple of methods that you can use to find which pages on your website are affected by this status, i.e.:
- Use Google Search Console
- Use Rank Math’s Analytics
Both methods take only a few minutes of your time to identify the pages affected with “Duplicate, Submitted URL not selected as canonical” status. Let’s guide you through them step by step.
Finding Effected Pages Using Google Search Console
Here is how you can identify the pages using Google Search Console:
1. Open the Google Search Console and go to the Pages Section.
2. Scroll down and you will find the data regarding not indexed pages.
3. Find and click on the Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical status to check
4. It will provide you with a list of pages from your website that are affected by this status.
Using Rank Math’s Analytics to Find Effected Pages
Rank Math offers an extremely user-friendly method to identify the pages affected by this specific status. Here are the details:
- Open your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Analytics in the Rank Math.
- Click the Index Status tab to check the actual status of your web pages on Google.
- Go to the drop-down menu to filter the index status for your specific status.
- Select “Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical”.
- This will provide you with a list of the pages that are affected by this status.
Fixing the “Duplicate, Submitted URL Not Selected as Canonical” Status
Following are some methods that you can use to fix this problem:
- Check for the Canonical Tag for the URL
- Use a 301 Redirect to the Original URL
- Add a Self-referencing Canonical URL in the Google Search Console
Let’s discuss these methods in detail for you to help you fix the problem.
Check for the Canonical Tag for the URL
Open the HTML codes of that specific webpage and find the canonical tag for the URL in question. Look for the following reference:
Once you locate the aforementioned section, you will find the following two scenarios:
- If the URL in question is an original page, then its URL should be the canonical URL for the page. If not, correct the URL in the canonical tag.
- If the web page in question is a duplicate page, its canonical URL should be the original web page’s URL. If you find any mismatch, change the URL back to the original page’s URL.
Use a 301 Redirect to the Original URL
If you find that the canonical URL for the webpage is correct, but Google has selected the duplicate page as the canonical, and you disagree with this decision of Google, you can use a 301 redirect to permanently move traffic and ranking to the original page. You can set up using a 301 redirect using the following:
- .htaccess file
- Rank Math Modules
This will render the duplicate permanently inaccessible for the users permanently to the original URL that you have selected.
Add a Self-referencing Canonical URL and Update the Contents
If you find out that Google has chosen a different canonical URL from what you intended, and you want your selected URL to sustain as the canonical URL for this page, you can add a self-referencing canonical URL for the page to put it back to the Google index.
Moreover, you can also update the contents of the page to make it unique and preferable to the duplicate page. Adding more internal links to the page will also make the page a preferred choice for the search engine.
