Lets be honest, we all love WordPress. Our site runs on it, and yours probably does too if you’re reading this.
But there’s one pesky little, HUGE problem that it creates. The problem arises from the use of SEO plugins. I won’t name one in particular but there are just a handful of SEO plugins that most websites use.
What do you mean, duplicate canonical tags? Learn why they’re important here.
Lets Get Started.
Go to your website, right click the page (try both homepage and sub-page), and select “View Page Source,” or something similar if you’re not using Firefox.
On your keyboard press “Ctrl + F” and type in “canonical” (without quotes). Press Enter to find duplicate instances of “canonical.”
If you only find one instance of “canonical,” you are in the clear. However, if you found two or [cringe] more instances of the silly word, you have a problem.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
Notice the canonical tag on line 17 above. The canonical tag here is actually incorrect, since it’s pointing to the site’s homepage. The real issue, however, is that on line 61, below, there is a duplicate canonical tag that is pointing to the sub page (which in this case is the company’s “Link Building Packages” page).
First of all, SEO companies should not have duplicate canonical tag issues. That is an entirely different post, however. What you need to know is how to fix this problem.
Here’s the problem.
Look at the first image above and go to line 28 near the bottom. You’ll see the name of the SEO plugin that is causing the problem. If this plugin were disabled, there would likely be no duplicate canonical tag issue.
The goal is to find a WordPress theme that is SEO friendly, and bypass “friendly” SEO plugins altogether. For example, SEO Windy City uses the Genesis (aff link) framework, which is extremely SEO friendly (in addition to being fast loading and mobile friendly/responsive). My goal here is not to sell you on a theme (we just happen to love our theme, and believe a minimal number of plugins improves site speed), but rather address the duplicate canonical tag issue.
The Fix.
In order to fix your duplicate canonical tag problem, you’ll need to do some testing. First, try deactivating your SEO plugin. Refresh your page, then check the source code again for the duplicate canonical tag.
If you see just one canonical tag, you know that your SEO plugin was the culprit.
If you would like to keep your SEO plugin, try disabling the “canonical tag” option within your theme settings.
For example, for our theme I would go to Genesis > SEO Settings.
Scroll down to Archive Settings, then then deselect “Canonical Paginated Archives.”
This is just an example, however. All themes work differently and have different settings, so you’ll likely need to do some digging.
Let the digging begin!
If your theme doesn’t have settings for canonical tags, try disabling the canonical tag setting within your SEO plugin.
Side note: you would not even see these “SEO Options” within the Genesis framework if you’re using one of their recommended SEO plugins (e.g. WordPress SEO by Yoast). Here’s a quote from their site:
Genesis SEO (search engine optimization) is polite, and will disable itself when most popular SEO plugins are active.
If you don’t see an SEO Settings sub menu, then you probably have another SEO plugin active. If you see the menu, then opening that menu item will let you set the General SEO settings for your site.
Back up your site.
Caution: Please back up your site before you start changing a bunch of theme options. We like VaultPress by Automattic (good with any web host), or DreamObjects if your site is hosted with DreamHost (they offer a free trial option, and 1GB free data when you opt for multi-factor authentication).
Wrapping things up.
The answer to your duplicate canonical tag issue is that you simply need to check your site’s HTML code, and look for the duplicate tag. WordPress makes website creation so easy that many website owners fail to do this important step (even SEO companies!).
Once you’ve found duplicate canonical tags, you need to deactivate any SEO plugins you have. Refresh the page and check the source code again.
If you would like to keep your SEO plugin, try disabling the “canonical tag” option within your theme settings.
If your WordPress theme doesn’t have settings for canonical tags, try disabling the canonical tag setting within your SEO plugin.
If that doesn’t work, try changing your theme, or searching Google for a solution. You might also try to be dangerous and insert custom code into your theme’s functions.php file (remember to back it up first).
If you find a different solution to your duplicate canonical tag problem, or have any other insight, please leave a comment below!