Change Google's version of Canonical link

[SDCMarketing]

Hi

My website has millions of URLs and some of the URLs have duplicate versions. We did not set canonical all these years. Now we wanted to implement it  and fix all the technical SEO issues.

I wanted to consolidate and redirect all the variations of a URL to the highest pageview version and use that as the canonical because all of these variations have the same content.

While doing this, I found in Google search console that Google has already selected another variation of URL as canonical and not the highest pageview version.

My questions:

1. I have millions of URLs for which I have to do 301 and set canonical. How can I find all the canonical URLs that Google has autoselected? Search Console has a daily quota of 100 or something.

2. Is it possible to override Google's version of Canonical? Meaning, if I set a variation as Canonical and it is different than what Google has already selected, will it change overtime in Search Console?

3. Should I just do a 301 to highest pageview variation of the URL and not set canonicals at all? This way the canonical that Google auto selected might get redirected to the highest pageview variation of the URL.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

[GastonRiera]

Hi there!

I hear you, had some simililar issues with big sites that i've worked with.

I would go with the "highest page viewed" page to be the canonical, you should select the one that you consider serves users with the best experience or match their search intent. That said, i'll answer your questions:

1. No, there is way to get that many URLs from Search Console. Through API the most I could ever get was arround 200k URLs.
2. It's not that hard as "overriding" the actual canonical page selected by google... You should tell Google wich is your preferred canonical page, then G will decide whether to use it or not.
3. Is always wise to go first with a canonical, so you can analyze how google reacts with that change. Then wait a little time, a few weeks and if everything went as planned set redirections.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR.

[SDCMarketing]

Hi Gaston!

Thanks for getting back to me and answering all my questions. I will work on getting the Canonical live and then wait to see how Google reacts before doing the redirects.

Best regards,
A