An alternate page with proper canonical tag refers to a specific technical implementation used in website development to indicate to search engines which version of a web page is the primary, or “canonical” version, when there are multiple versions of that page available.
For example, a website may have a desktop version of a page and a mobile version of the same page. In this case, the website can use the “alternate” link tag in the HTML of each version of the page to indicate to search engines that there is another version of the page available. The tag would include the URL of the other version of the page, along with the attribute “rel=’canonical'”.
This tells search engines that the alternate version is not the primary version, and that they should consider the canonical version as the authoritative source of the page’s content for indexing and ranking purposes. This helps to avoid duplicate content issues, which can negatively impact a website’s search engine visibility and ranking.
What Happen:
When a website uses an alternate page with proper canonical tag, it helps to ensure that search engines properly identify and index the correct version of a web page.
Specifically, when search engines crawl and index a website, they may encounter multiple versions of the same page, such as a desktop version and a mobile version. If there is no indication of which version is the primary, search engines may interpret this as duplicate content, which can negatively impact the website’s ranking and visibility in search results.
By using an alternate page with proper canonical tag, the website indicates to search engines which version of the page is the primary or canonical version, and which versions are alternative or duplicate. Search engines will then crawl and index the canonical version, while ignoring the alternate versions, which helps to prevent any negative impact on the website’s search engine visibility and ranking.
In addition to avoiding duplicate content issues, using an alternate page with proper canonical tag can also help to ensure a better user experience, since users will be directed to the correct version of a page based on their device or browser, and can easily access the content they are looking for.
How to fix “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” in Search Console
How To Fix:
Implementing an alternate page with proper canonical tag involves adding specific HTML code to your website. Here are the steps to fix an alternate page with proper canonical tag:
- Determine which versions of your web pages need an alternate page with proper canonical tag. For example, you may have a desktop version and a mobile version of the same page.
- In the HTML of each version of the page, add an “alternate” link tag that points to the other version of the page. For example, in the desktop version of the page, you would add the following code to the head section of the HTML:
<link rel="alternate" href="https://m.yourwebsite.com/page-name" />
This tells search engines that there is an alternative version of the page available, and specifies the URL of that version.
- In the HTML of each version of the page, also add a canonical link tag that points to the canonical version of the page. For example, in the desktop version of the page, you would add the following code to the head section of the HTML:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.yourwebsite.com/page-name" />
This tells search engines that the canonical version of the page is located at the specified URL.
- Repeat this process for each pair of alternate pages on your website.
- Test your implementation to ensure that search engines are correctly identifying the canonical version of your pages.
It’s important to note that implementing an alternate page with proper canonical tag is just one aspect of search engine optimization (SEO), and there are many other factors that can affect your website’s ranking in search results. However, by correctly implementing this tag, you can help to ensure that search engines correctly identify the primary version of your pages, which can improve your website’s visibility and user experience.
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