How to fix non self canonical on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. BigCommerce generates self-canonical tags automatically via its Stencil theme framework.
2. If a non-self-canonical exists, it is almost certainly introduced by a custom Stencil theme edit. In your BigCommerce admin go to Storefront → My Themes → click 'Advanced' → 'Edit Theme Files'.
3. In the theme editor, search all template files (.html files under 'templates/') for 'canonical'. The standard output is {{canonicalUrl}} — if you see a hardcoded URL or a modified value, restore it to: <link rel="canonical" href="{{canonicalUrl}}">.
4. If you use a third-party SEO app from the BigCommerce App Marketplace (e.g., WordStream, Yoast for BigCommerce integrations), check that app's canonical override settings for the affected page type.
5. Save and push theme changes, then preview the storefront page and view-source to verify the canonical matches the page URL.

What is non self canonical?

A canonical tag is a small snippet of HTML code, placed in the `<head>` of a page, that tells Google "this is the definitive version of this content." A self-canonical means the tag points back to the page itself — the norm for any page you want indexed. A non-self-canonical means the tag points to a different URL, effectively telling Google: "don't index me, index that other page instead." This is sometimes intentional (e.g., a filtered product-listing page deferring to the main category page), but when it happens by accident, Google will ignore the page entirely and index the wrong destination instead.

When a page has a non-self-canonical by mistake, Google treats it as a duplicate and removes it from search results — meaning all the organic traffic that page could earn is lost. If important product, category, or landing pages are accidentally canonicalized to the wrong URL, your store effectively disappears from Google for those queries. Even if Google doesn't fully honour the tag, it still dilutes your crawl budget and creates confusing ranking signals. Fixing accidental non-self-canonicals can restore lost rankings quickly, while verifying intentional ones ensures you're not accidentally de-indexing pages you need.

See the complete Non self canonical guide for every platform and the full background.