Warning from Google Search Console

Question
1

Hello.

I am receiving a warning from Google:
Search Console has detected that your website is affected by 1 problem(s) of the “page indexing” type. The following issues were found on your website. We recommend fixing these issues if possible, so that Google Search works optimally and has a high reach.

Most common issues: Duplicate - not set as canonical by the user

I have no idea how to fix this, nor what the problem is.

I have entered https://www.meinedomain.xyz as the website address in the project.
Yes, I have a certificate. The site can also be reached via https://meinedomain.xyz.

When I click “Troubleshoot”, I get this message as a response:
Google has begun reviewing your troubleshooting of page indexing issues on your site. Specifically, we are looking for “duplicate - not set as canonical by user”. There are currently 1 pages affected by this.

I don’t have duplicate content though.

What is bothering Google here?

Any advice is very welcome.

Mr. F.

p.s.: the results after searching for “canonical” in the posts did not help me.

2

Without seeing your setup it’s hard to say exactly.

The duplicate content does happen for an incorrect canonical setup.

If you have both https and http, you should redirect to https.

If you have both www and sans-www, you should pick one and redirect to that.

And after picking one of those, the google search console setup should be identical.

3

Hi Duncan.

What would you need?
The whole project file or selected screenshots?

We could continue by mail.

Thanks.
Mr. F.

4

The URL you are using in search console should be enough to figure out all other things.

5

Thank you for checking.
This is beyond my abilities.

Mr. F.

6

I’d only fix the redirection from https://golf-center.net to https://www.golf-center.net.

If you recently published a changed web address, the Google message could be referring to an older version.

Or it could be referring to the duplication www and no www above.

Hard to say.

7

Thanks.
Should i add this in the htaccess file?
With “rewrite engine on” and “redirect 301 …”?

Mr. F.

8

Yes the .htaccess configuration would work.

If you have this for http to https redirection:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^/?(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]

This should work for the non-www to www redirection:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R]
9

I can’t say it often enough!
The support you get here deserves the highest award. Period!

Thank you Team Sparkle.

Mr. F.

2 Likes
10

Hello @Mr_Fozzie.

Was the end result a happy Google Search Console? I ask because I too see similar warnings and I am not understanding what I need to do.

11

Hello.

Well I can say that Google has not warned me since.
So everything seems to have worked.

Mr. F.