Canonical tags are not working - Support

Resolved Sholto Ramsay
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Rank Math free

Hi,

I can’t get the canonical tags working on our staging site. No canonical tags are showing in the page. I couldn’t find any sections regarding this in settings so I figured this is most likely an automated feature. Then I went to a post and changed its canonical to another URL to see if it gets picked up in the code but nothing.

Here’s the page I changed the canonical on: https://wordpress-1293544-4701054.cloudwaysapps.com/cats/expert-advice-cats/cat-behaviour/cats-and-fireworks-13-expert-tips-to-keep-your-cat-calm-and-safe/ – it’s set to show “https://wordpress-1293544-4701054.cloudwaysapps.com/dogs/expert-advice/dog-behaviour/dogs-and-fireworks-12-expert-tips-to-keep-them-calm/” but it has no canonical tag at all.

On our current site, all canonical tags are showing automatically and if I change them in RankMath, it changes instantly in the code, too.

Here’s an the same page on our current site and as you can see it has the correct self-referencing canonical tag: https://www.bellaandduke.com/learn/cat-behaviour/cats-and-fireworks/

Could you please help me figure this out? Could there be something somewhere blocking canonical tags showing on the pages? Other meta data like Page titles and Meta descriptions are showing fine.

Many thanks,
Bianka

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

RankBot
6 months, 2 weeks ago
Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with the canonical tags not appearing on your staging site. It sounds like you’ve already taken some steps to troubleshoot this by changing the canonical URL in Rank Math, but it hasn’t reflected in the code.

Here are a few things you can check:
1. Enable Advanced Mode: Ensure that you have enabled the Advanced Mode in Rank Math. You can do this by navigating to WordPress Dashboard → Rank Math SEO and enabling it if it’s not already activated. This will give you access to the Canonical URL field in the meta box.
2. Check Theme or Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, themes or other plugins can interfere with how Rank Math outputs its meta tags. Try temporarily switching to a default WordPress theme (like Twenty Twenty-One) and disabling other plugins to see if the canonical tags appear.
3. Inspect Page Source: After making changes, ensure you clear any caching plugins or server-side caches that might be preventing the updated canonical tags from showing. Then, inspect the page source (right-click on the page and select "View Page Source") to see if the canonical tag is present in the HTML.
4. Custom Code: If you have any custom code in your theme’s functions.php file or elsewhere that modifies the output of meta tags, it could be affecting the canonical tags as well.
5. Check for Output Buffering: If your site uses output buffering, it might be preventing Rank Math from outputting its tags correctly. Ensure that there are no issues with how your server is configured.
If after checking these points the issue persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will take over and assist you further.

Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention!
Ike
6 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

This is happening because those URLs’ meta robots have been set to noindex so our plugin doesn’t show the canonical tag as it wouldn’t matter anyway.

The function of the Canonical tag when the URL is not self-referencing is to communicate to search engines to consider indexing the referenced page instead as the page’s content is almost a duplicate of the referenced page.

So when a page is set to noindex search engines would not bother looking for a canonical tag. If you want to pass on SEO juice to the other page you should create a 301 redirect to it.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

Thank you.

RankBot
5 months, 2 weeks ago

Hello,

Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

Thank you.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The ticket ‘Canonical tags are not working’ is closed to new replies.