Hello,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing issues with the canonical tag not showing up in the Chrome Inspector after updating the page.
It’s important to ensure that the changes are reflecting correctly. To do this, please ensure that you have followed the correct steps to add the canonical URL in the Advanced tab of the Rank Math plugin and updated the page as you normally would after making a change.
If you’ve already done this and the changes are still not reflecting, it might be helpful to clear your website cache and browser cache to see if that resolves the issue. Additionally, you can also try using an incognito window to inspect the page to rule out any caching issues.
If the issue persists, please let us know, and we’ll be happy to assist you further.
Sources:
Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag Status in Google Search Console » Rank Math
How to Fix “Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical than User” » Rank Math
How to Fix ‘Duplicate, Submitted URL Not Selected as Canonical’ Issue in Google Search Console » Rank Math
Fix Excluded by NoIndex Tag – Google Search Console Status » Rank Math
Thank you, I have tried clearing the cache and using an incognito window to locate the canonical and I still cannot find it.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
Could you please share the affected URL with us so that we can check the issue further for you?
However, please note that Rank Math only includes the canonical URL when your page/post is set to index. If your pages are currently set to noindex then there is no need to set a canonical because Google is not going to add this on SERPs.
Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Hi,
Thank you very much for the clarification, I think you answered my question. The site is currently in development and is in a staging environment, so all pages are set to noindex. Your explanation would explain why the canonicals are not being placed.
While we are on the canonical topic, if we don’t enter a custom canonical and leave that field blank after building a page, will a self-referencing canonical be placed automatically? In other words, should we manually add a canonical every time? I’ve noticed that there is placeholder text that reflects the page URL in the field if nothing is done to it so I wanted to confirm.
Thank you again!
Brad
Hello,
Rank Math automatically includes the self-referencing canonical URL to your posts/pages when they are set to index.
We have the field to include canonical so that if you want, you can add any custom canonical on your pages. If you leave this field blank, Rank Math will auto-include the self-referencing canonical.
Hope that helps and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions.
Thank you.
Perfect, thank you for the help. We are loving the plugin.
We can close this ticket now.
Best,
Brad
Hello,
We are super happy that we could address your concern. If you have any other questions in the future, know that we are here to help you.
If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.
If you do have another question in the future, please feel free to create a new forum topic, and it will be our pleasure to assist you again.
Thank you.
