"Google chose different canonical than user" Issue Can Anyone help?

[RobinJA]

Our site https://www.travelyaari.com/ , some page are showing this error ("Google chose different canonical than user") on google webmasters. status message "Excluded from search results".

Affected on our route page urls mainly. https://www.travelyaari.com/popular-routes-listing

Our canonical tags are fine, rel alternate tags are fine. Can anyone help us regarding why it is happening?

[Alick300]

Hi,

Please check this old thread on the same (Ruth's reply).

https://moz.com/community/q/google-ignoring-canonical-and-choosing-its-own

Hope this helps!!

Thanks

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Robin

You have two versions of the page, the desktop and mobile.

If you search from mobile the m. comes up
If you search from PC the desktop page comes up.

So there really is no problem. It could just be that if someone is searching on mobile then the desktop version is set as the canonical and so Google has rightly chosen the m.

What is sure is that your search results are not being affected.

My advice though would be to change your title to '**Bus Routes In India - Route Directory | **Travelyaari'

This is because the title does not convey the full meaning. Your page would probably move much higher on the page with this title. And the description: "Get Indian Bus Schedules, timetables & information about bus routes in India. Get daily scheduled bus services & bookings on bus routes more than 20000+ - Travelyaari" Get those keywords in there!

I hope this helps

Regards Nigel

[RobinJA]

Hi, thank you. But the answer mentioned is not a sure shot.

Problem is not with this URL. The URLs listed inside this URL "https://www.travelyaari.com/popular-routes-listing" Kindly open it and find the lists.

Under new Google Search Console: Index Coverage> Not Indexed> Google chose different canonical than user>66k pages affected.

Those URLs are listed there as an issue. I need to know what is exactly "Google chose different canonical than user".

[Nigel_Carr]

Ah OK Robin you didn't make that clear - I'll have a look.

The stuff about title and description is still very valid.

Regards

Nigel

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Robin

I have checked a few of those as well and the desktop version is coming up high in search for PC search and the m. for mobile.

Whilst it is true that Google can choose its own canonicals I think in your case both versions are being shown on the appropriate device and I think the only reason you are seeing the error is that on your mobile version you have the PC version tag as canonical so Google is quite rightly picking the m. - See screenshot

Despite what you are seeing it is not affecting your rankings.

I would also make all listings https as you are linking from a secure page to a lot of non-secure pages.

Regards

Nigel

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[bridget.randolph]

Hi Robin,

Nigel has offered some good advice here - the one thing I would also add is that you may want to set up mobile switchboard tags to make it clear to Google that the desktop version is the canonical version for PCs and the mobile version is canonical for mobile.

See more info here: https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/separate-urls#annotations-for-desktop-and-mobile-urls