How to fix non self canonical on Adobe Commerce (Magento)
Ensure every page's canonical tag points to that same page's own URL — fix any canonical that currently points to a different page unless the redirect is genuinely intentional.
Steps for Adobe Commerce (Magento)
- Log in to the Magento Admin Panel and navigate to Stores → Configuration → Catalog → Catalog → Search Engine Optimization.
- Review settings for 'Use Canonical Link Meta Tag for Categories' and 'Use Canonical Link Meta Tag for Products' — these are typically set to 'Yes' for self-referencing canonicals.
- For individual products/categories, go to Catalog → Products (or Categories) → open the item → Search Engine Optimization tab → check the 'URL Key' and any custom canonical field.
- If a third-party SEO extension (e.g., Mageplaza SEO, Amasty SEO) is installed, navigate to that extension's configuration in Stores → Configuration to find canonical override settings.
- Check your custom theme layout XML files (e.g., catalog_product_view.xml) for any block or template that outputs a custom canonical tag, and correct it.
- Flush cache: System → Cache Management → Flush Magento Cache, then verify via View Source.
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/products/your-product-name/" />What is non self canonical?
A canonical tag is a small snippet of HTML code (rel="canonical") placed in a page's <head> section that tells Google: "This URL is the one I want indexed and credited." A self-referencing canonical means the tag on a page simply points back to that same page's URL. A non-self canonical means the tag on a page points to a different URL — effectively telling Google to ignore this page and credit another one instead. That instruction may be correct (for intentional duplicate pages) but it is frequently an accident that silently hides important pages from search engines.
When a canonical accidentally points to the wrong URL, Google treats the current page as a duplicate that should not be indexed. Your product, category, or content page disappears from search results — losing any organic traffic and sales it would have generated. Even if Google does crawl the page, any external links pointing to it pass their ranking power ("link equity") to the wrong destination. At scale — for example, a non-self canonical on every product page — this can wipe out an entire section of your organic traffic. Fixing stray canonicals is one of the highest-impact, lowest-effort SEO corrections you can make.
See the complete Non self canonical guide for every platform and the full background.
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