Canonical URLs being ignored?

[A_Q]

Hi Guys,

Has anybody noticed canonical URLs being ignored where they were previously obeyed?

I have a site that is doing this at the moment and just wondered if this was being seen elsewhere and if anyone knows what the solution is?

Thanks,

Elias

[Keszi]

Hi Elias,

I have seen a similar issue a few months ago at an ex employer. In their case 301 redirects have been ignored!

So basically what happened:

1. They had an older link structure which they have redirected to the new url versions (this happened around 2009-2010)
2. After a "silence" period in affiliate marketing they have reactivated their affiliate programs and heavily invested in it.
3. Because of no. 2. they have gained a lot of incoming links with the old links

Now what we believe went wrong is that Google could interpret this as an "accidental" 301 redirect because of the high number new incoming links to the old version.

As far as I know, when they resolved their affiliate links everything went back to normal.

It might be that your situation is a similar one to theirs.

I hope it helps,

Istvan

[A_Q]

Thanks István

I'm not sure if it is the same thing but I will look into it. It just seems odd to suddenly ignore Canonical URLs.

Thanks

[Keszi]

It was the same at that website also... This is why they have asked me if I have seen similar situations... and while investigating it, the most logical answer was this.

I hope it will resolve the issue for you also!

Cheers,

Istvan

[Dr-Pete]

I've usually seen it in cases like what Istvan mentioned - somehow, another signal comes into play. Maybe it's new links to the non-canonical URLs, maybe some internal pages with old links get crawled, maybe a new 301 or canonical comes into play that conflicts with the existing canonical.

If they're being ignore now, then it's possible you're using the canonical tag as a band-aid, for lack of a better term, and the underlying problem that caused the duplicates is still in play. If Google's really being indecisive, you may want to take a closer look at that underlying problem and not just rely on canonicals.

Generally, the tag is pretty strong, but Google does get it wrong from time to time. Sorry, it's hard to advise based on generalities. The devil is in the details on these situations, I find.