Alternate page with proper canonical tag: when it’s fine and when it isn’t

Updated · Check Before Publish

“Alternate page with proper canonical tag” means Google found this URL, saw a canonical tag on it pointing to a different URL, and indexed that other URL instead. That is usually exactly what should happen: a duplicate, a filtered view or a tracking-parameter version points to its main page. It's a problem only if the URL in the report is a page you want on Google, or if the canonical points somewhere wrong.

When it's fine

If the URLs in the report look like these, the status confirms your canonicals work and there is nothing to fix:

  • Tracking and sorting parameters: /shop?utm_source=newsletter, /shop?sort=price
  • Product variants or colour options that point to one product page
  • Print versions, AMP versions or paginated duplicates of a page

When it's a problem

  1. The main page points away from itself. A template bug (every page canonical to the home page), or a page created by copying another one and keeping its canonical.
  2. The canonical points to staging or an old domain, for example
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://staging.example.com/pricing">
  3. The canonical target is broken: it returns a 404, an error or a redirect. You're asking Google to index a URL that doesn't work, and Google may ignore the hint and pick a URL itself.
  4. Mixed signals: the page is set to noindex and has a canonical pointing to another URL. The two instructions contradict each other.

How to check the canonical and where it leads

View Source and search for canonical to see what the page declares. What View Source can't tell you is whether the URL it points to actually works. The checker below reads the canonical tag (and flags a missing one, several conflicting ones, or an invalid URL), tells you whether it points to this page or another one, and then fetches the target to see whether it returns 200, redirects, or fails.

Opens the Meta, Canonical & Noindex Checker and runs it. Free, no account. The address is not stored and never goes into the URL bar.

How to fix it

  • On a page that should be indexed: make its canonical point to itself, as an absolute URL, exactly as the page is served (same protocol, same www or not, same trailing slash):
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/pricing">
  • Template or plugin bug: fix it in the template or SEO plugin so every page outputs its own URL, rather than patching pages one by one.
  • Broken target: point the canonical at the URL that actually serves the content, not at one that redirects.
  • noindex plus canonical: decide which you mean. To consolidate a duplicate, keep the canonical and remove noindex. To keep a page out of search, keep noindex and remove the canonical (or make it self-referencing).

How to confirm the fix

Run the check again; for a page that should be indexed it should say the canonical target is this page and returns 200. Then, in Search Console's URL Inspection, compare User-declared canonical with Google-selected canonical. Google treats the canonical tag as a strong hint, not a command: if the two still differ after Google recrawls, Google is weighing other signals, such as near-identical content, redirects or which URL your internal links use. That case appears as a separate status, “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user”.

If the page is correct and still missing, work through why a page isn't showing up on Google.

Fixed this one? Before you send people to the page, run the full pre-publish check for everything else: indexing signals, link preview, broken links, alt text, structured data and HTTPS in one pass.

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