If you have come across the “Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag” status in the Google Search Console, you might be wondering what it means and whether it affects your website’s SEO. This issue is quite common. This status doesn’t always mean that there is something for you to fix. However, you should check the affected pages to determine how you want Google to treat them.
In this blog, we will go over what this warning means, and what to do if you receive this warning.
What Does “Alternative Page with Proper Canonical Tag” Mean?
The “Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag” is a Google Search Console status that appears when you have multiple versions of the same page on your website. Because of this, Google can get confused to determine which page should be indexed.
This is where the canonical tag comes in. The canonical tag acts as an indicator, telling search engines which page is the “original” or “main” content. This prevents duplicate content issues, consolidates ranking signals, and ensures that the right page gets the visibility it deserves.
However, if you see this status in Search Console, it’s not necessarily an error, it’s just an informational message. But if you want to check or improve it, you can follow the following steps:
• Check Which Pages are Affected by This status
To check this status
- Log in to Google Search Console.
- Go to “Pages” under the “Indexing” section.
- Scroll down and go to the “Why pages are not indexed” section and click on “Alternate page with proper canonical tag”.
• Decide Whether These Pages Should be Indexed
Look at the report, and if you find any page you want to index, then add a canonical at on each of these pages to tell Google they are the main version. After that, update your sitemap and internal links on your website to make sure they point to these correct pages. This helps Google index the right pages and avoid any confusion caused by duplicate content.
• Check in the Google Search Console that the Correct Pages are Indexed
You can use the URL Inspection Tool to confirm that Google understands which version of the page should be indexed. To check this, log into Google Search Console and go to the URL Inspection tool to confirm that the canonical tag is properly identified for your pages. This helps in inspecting that the canonical tags you have implemented are recognized and accepted by the search engine.
• Use 301 Redirect
If the alternative page does not have any purpose, you can use 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent way to direct traffic from one URL to another. This guides the search engines and users from the alternative page to the correct and primary page. This helps avoid duplicate content issues and improves SEO by focusing on all the traffic and ranking on the main page.
Read also: technical SEO checklist
Final Words
The “Alternative Page with Proper Canonical Tag” status is a common concern that is caused by similar or duplicate content. If you want to fix this issue, then you can follow the above points. By doing this, you can ensure that Google indexes and ranks your content accurately and prevents any problems while maximizing your SEO performance.
