Duplicate page without canonical URL selected by the user

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1

Every time I publish a new page, Google considers that there are two versions (one with and one without www) and this causes duplicate content errors.

However, I have set a default version in the global settings for the site (the one without www). Have you ever had this problem? How did you solve it? Thank you.

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Hi there!

To prevent search engines from treating www and non-www versions of your site as duplicate content, you’ll need to set up a global canonical tag. This tells search engines which version of your site should be considered the primary version.

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. Navigate to Site settings > SEO > Global canonical tag URL
  2. Enter your site’s base URL (e.g., https://yourdomain.com)
  3. Include the HTTP/HTTPS protocol
  4. If your default domain uses www, include it (e.g., https://www.yourdomain.com)
  5. Don’t include any trailing slashes
  6. Publish your site to apply the changes

After implementation, you can use Google Search Console to request a recrawl of your site, which will help search engines recognize these changes more quickly.

Hopefully this helps! If you still need assistance, please reply here so somebody from the community can help.

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Hi Rachel, what’s your domain?

Note that you can only do that if you have a flattened CNAME configuration in your DNS server. Otherwise the www must be the default domain.

But assuming you have that part setup properly-

  • You’d want to verify that your www is correctly redirecting to your apex domain.
  • You’d want to double-check that your sitemap is generating properly without the www.
  • And then verify that in Google search console that you’ve given it the non-www origin in the sitemap URL.
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If I set the global canonical tag URL, Google takes the general title of the site + a meta description that it created for all my blog articles (even though I have set the title and meta description correctly). So, I deleted the global canonical tag.

I put it back, but why do I have this problem with the preview of my articles in the SERP?

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OK, I have restored the default www version and sent the new sitemap to Google.

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When it comes to Google’s search results, everything you give- including your page title, and META description - are considered “suggestions.”

Google will write what it thinks is best.

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No, when I have no global canonical tag, my blog posts appears with title and meta description I choose. That’s the reason why I didn’t add it first.

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It’s still the case that those pieces are only suggestions. Google uses them if and how it wants to. If you are watching what’s happening, this trend is extending to the actual viewing of your content too. Google modifies the Youtube videos you upload, and AI assistants modify and rehash your HTML content to suit the user’s query. The web is changing.

As far as why Google’s behaving differently when you don’t have a canonical, you’d have to ask Google. It could be drawing from different cached page content in either the with canonical or without canonical scenarios.

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