Frustrated with technical errors on your website? we will discuss the most common error, “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” under excluded in the Google search console under indexing –> pages section.
Page indexing has only two options Indexed and Not Indexed. This coverage error is a part of not indexed, which could be caused by duplicate content or an error in the canonical URL.
When you see any pages affected by this issue, you have to look at whether the web page is the potential web page to be indexed. If not, this is just a notification and not an error.
If yes, the affected page to be indexed, then you have to read this article completely to find all the ways to fix this coverage issue.
What Is Duplicate Without User Selected Canonical?
Duplicate without a user-selected canonical is a common index coverage issue/error that excludes a web page from indexing; it is when two or multiple web pages have duplicate content without a user-selected canonical URL.
In this situation, search engines like Google get confused in choosing the original page to index, and end up excluding the potential web page as a duplicate.
It hurts the SEO. But the best practice includes selecting a proper and relevant canonical tag for every web page can solve this problem.
In fact in many cases, this could be just a condition depending upon the nature of the URL, that you will learn during the fixing process.
Beyond the Obvious: The Real Reasons Behind This Problem
The fundamental causes of the “Duplicate Without User Selected Canonical” problem may already be familiar to you. It includes HTTP vs. HTTPS incompatibilities, URL parameters (?utm_source), or www vs. non-www versions.
But here’s the kicker: there are some sneaky technical issues that even experienced SEOs often miss.
Let’s examine some surprising offenders who may be the source of your duplicate content issues:
a.Non-Standard URL Structures
Have you ever seen URLs with random numbers, extra slashes, or weird variations?
Certain content management systems like Shopify and Magento automatically create duplicate versions of the same page without obvious canonical tags.
For Example:
1.example.com/product/blue-shirt
2.example.com/product/blue-shirt/ → Notice the extra slash? Google will treat it as a separate page!
3.example.com/product?id=1234
Fix? Make sure the URLs your CMS creates are clear and consistent, and configure 301 redirects for any extra variations.
b.Thin Content Duplicates
Not all duplicate content is exactly identical. If you have multiple pages with almost the same content, Google might still group them as duplicates.
For Example: Assume that you have separate location pages for different cities, but the only difference is the city name.
1.example.com/dentist-new-york
2.example.com/dentist-los-angeles
3.example.com/dentist-chicago
Google will not know which of these pages to prioritize if it believes they are too similar.
Fix? To make each page stand out, include unique, location-specific content.
c.Conflicting Canonical Tags
This one kills silently. Consider that even if you have a canonical tag on your page, it is pointing to the incorrect URL or, worse, that several pages are pointing to one another again.
That’s like telling Google, “Hey, this is the main page!” and then changing your mind five minutes later.
For Example:
1.Page A has a canonical tag pointing to Page B.
2.Page B has a canonical tag pointing back to Page A.
Google asks, “Uh… which one am I supposed to index?” after seeing this.
Fix? Make sure your canonical tags lead to the proper version by double-checking them using Sitebulb or Screaming Frog.
d.Hreflang Misconfigurations (For Multilingual Sites)
You most likely employ hreflang tags to inform Google which version of your website is intended for which audience if it supports multiple languages. For example, English and Spanish.
However, Google may incorrectly classify these as duplicates if they are not configured properly.
For instance:
-example.com/en/ (English)
-example.com/es/ (Spanish)
However, Google believes that one is a duplicate of the other.
Fix? Ensure that every language version has an accurate and self-referencing hreflang implementation.
e.URL Casing Issues
Google recognizes URLs with capital and lowercase letters as distinct pages. If your website has inconsistent casing in URLs, you might unknowingly create duplicate pages.
For Example:
example.com/Service-Page
example.com/service-page
example.com/SERVICE-PAGE
These appear the same to us. To Google? URLs that are entirely different.
Fix? Maintain consistency in your internal linking by setting up 301 redirects to compel all URLs to be lowercase.
How will this problem hurt your SEO strategy?
You might think that Google’s authority to select a canonical version is sufficient.
Here’s the issue, though:
1.Instead of consolidating ranking power, your link equity is split across duplicate pages.
2.Your content strategy is no longer under your control. Instead of ranking your best version of the page, Google will rank a less optimized one.
3.The crawl budget gets wasted. Rather than indexing new content, Googlebot spends time crawling duplicate pages.
For Instance:
A SaaS company experienced a 30% drop in organic traffic after launching new product pages.
The reason? Instead of indexing the optimized sites, Google crawled duplicate URLs with UTM tracking parameters.
How to Discover Web Pages with this "Duplicate Without User Selected Canonical" Issue?
To discover the web pages excluded by duplicate without user-selected canonical is to log on to the Google search console.
Once logged in, click on Page under the Index section. This will take you to the visibility of the Page Indexing dashboard.
Following this, click on Not indexed, and the Google Search Console will provide a list of all the index coverage issues on your website.
If your domain has a duplicate without user-selected canonical, then it will appear with the number of web pages affected.
Export all the web pages affected, and start fixing by categorizing on the type of reason.
Reason that causes this page indexing issue?
The reasons behind duplicate without user-selected canonical are as follows,
- RSS Feed URLs can cause this issue – Sometimes, the RSS feed of the same web page can be assumed as a canonical version when you don’t provide a user-selected canonical.
- Pagination – In most cases, web pages with pagination like https://yourdomain.com/page-1; https://yourdomain.com/page-2, etc. If such a page is excluded under this page indexing issue, you do nothing, it’s just a condition.
- The conflict between HTTPS and HTTP protocol of the same web page.
- Sitemap with both canonical and non-canonical versions – Always remove the duplicate web page from the XML sitemap
- Targeting various countries with similar content – Always use preferred canonical URLs, and avoid duplicating the content by only replacing the locations.
- A self-referencing canonical tag without unique content.
- URL parameters like search strings, tracking UTM parameters, session IDs, etc.
- www and non-www web pages.
- Syndicated content – Avoid scraping or syndicating the content of your web page in various other content management or micr0-blog websites like Medium, Behance, LinkedIn, etc.
- Multi-language and multilingual web pages.
How to Fix Duplicate without User-Selected Canonical Issue?
The moment you export the URL, you have to validate whether the web page is a potential page or a canonical one. If a canonical page is found excluded under this coverage issue, then it’s high time to fix it.
If you find any other web pages with pagination, RSS feed, or HTTP protocol, then be cool. They are the least priority to fix. Still, you have to fix them by the following steps.
Step 1 - Update Canonical Tag for the Original Page:
Canonical tags are an HTML component that should be updated in the Header of the HTML file. These tags provide information on the originality of a web page to search engine crawlers.
If an original page that has to be indexed is excluded under duplicate without the user selecting canonical, then you have to update the canonical tag of the web page.
The canonical format is as below:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://yourdomain.com/original-page">
Once you update the canonical tag, you have to remove the web page selected by Google as a canonical web page from the Google index in the upcoming steps.
Step 2 - Remove the duplicate page from XML sitemap
When you update the original page’s canonical tag, you should remove the duplicate pages using the 410 HTTP response code (Content is gone).
You can also use the Removal option from the Google Search console.
Once you remove them using GSC or 410 HTTP status code, remove the URL from the XML sitemap.
Crawlers will read and index on a quick note if a web page is found in an XML sitemap. So, it mandates removing all the duplicate web pages apart from the canonical version in the sitemap.xml.
Step 3 - Redirect to Original Page
In some cases, when HTTP is selected as canonical by Google instead of HTTPS, you can redirect the HTTP version of the web page to the HTTPS version.
This makes Google and other search engines understand that HTTPS web pages are the canonical version.
Besides this, try to remove the HTTP version from XML sitemap. So, it will be excluded from indexing.
Step 4 - Mention Google search console to ignore URLs with parameters
Most often, we get web pages with parameters like session id, tracking codes, search strings.
The best way to avoid such web pages affected under this coverage issue or Google making this URL as original, you can inform Google search console to ignore the parameters.
This will ensure Google to only index the clean URL (without any parameters).
The best way to do so is by adding a disallow: /*?* in robots.txt. This provides the instruction to search engine not to crawl any URL with ? followed by parameters
Step 5 - Consolidate Identical or Nearly-identical contents
The biggest reason for duplicate without user-selected canonical is when a website has one of more similar or near-identical content.
The reason could be offering services on multiple location, multiple language, multiple devices.
The best way to fix is to consolidate the complete content into a single webpage, and incase of multiple language use hreflang.
Also, you can delete the duplicate web pages, so your website can have a unique web pages.
Step 6 - Use Noindex Robots Tag for all the duplicate web pages
Robots tag are important HTML meta tag search engine go through before indexing a webpage and following the links on the web pages.
When you find any web page as duplicate, make sure the web page is marked ‘noindex’ in robots tag, and make sure you remove the same URL from XML sitemap.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">
Step 7 - Validate Fix
Once, you finish all the procedure to clear the reason behind this issue, you can use Validate Fix option from the Google Search Console.
This makes a call for Googlebot to check the fixation of this issue and clear the web page from duplicate without user-selected canonical dashboard. It usually takes up to 28 days from the appeal date.
Pro-Strategies to prevent “Duplicate without user-selected Canonical”Issue
Why not completely avoid duplicate problems rather than continuously resolving them?
Here are some Pro-Strategies to prevent “Duplicate without user-selected Canonical”Issue:
1.Make your URL structure SEO-friendly. Auto-generated URL parameters should be avoided.
2.Implement www/non-www consistency and HTTPS. Redirect everything to a single preferred version.
3.Audit internal links on a regular basis. Verify that every internal link leads to the appropriate canonical version.
4.Make good use of robots.txt. Prevent crawling of low-value duplicate pages.
5.Verify the CMS settings. Make sure that no needless duplicate pages are created by platforms such as WordPress, Shopify, or Webflow.
For Instance – By eliminating session-based URLs and improving internal linking, an eCommerce website was able to cut down on duplicate pages by 60%. Within four weeks of establishing the correct canonicals, traffic increased again.
Conclusion
Duplicate without user-selected canonical is the coverage issue that arises when Google finds duplicate web pages and excludes a web page from indexing when the user-selected canonical is not found.
The best way to fix this issue is to provide canonical URLs for all the web pages, noindex duplicate web pages, consolidate all similar contents, and use robots.txt to block URLs with parameters.
If you still find it tedious to fix this issue, you can avail of our technical SEO Services to solve it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
This status in Google Search Console (GSC) indicates that Google has detected duplicate pages on your website but has chosen its own canonical URL rather than using a user-specified canonical tag.
This means you haven’t explicitly defined a canonical tag, and Google has determined which version it considers most relevant for indexing.
Duplicate Without User Selected Canonical: You haven’t specified a canonical tag, and Google has selected one.
Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical than User: You have set a canonical tag, but Google has ignored it and chosen a different canonical URL.
Google will take days to weeks to update its index. You can speed up the process by:
- Requesting reindexing in Google Search Console.
- Submitting an updated XML sitemap with correct canonical URLs.
Ensuring internal links point to the canonical version.
