Checks / Links, canonical and speed
Canonical points to another page
This page tells crawlers a different URL is the real one, so this one is ignored.
canonical_other · Links, canonical and speed · Warning
What triggers it
A page's canonical link points to a different path than the page's own address, unless the page it points to answers 200 and names itself as canonical (an alias done right).
What to change
Make the canonical point to the page itself unless this is a deliberate duplicate.
Example
HTML to put in the page:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/shoes/blue-trail">How to confirm the fix
- View Source: the canonical href equals the page URL
- Press 'Re-check 1 page'
How common it is
We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.
About this check
| Check ID | canonical_other |
|---|---|
| Report section | Links, canonical and speed |
| Severity | Warning |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | No, the fix is described in words |
Related checks
- Redirect loop
- Canonical points to a noindex page
- Pages refuse or do not answer our crawler
- Very large HTML
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