Why isn't the canonical url changing?

Question

When I click on a link in my site it takes me to a new page in the same tab. The prefix in the displayed url within the browser and the page content does update. The canonical url within the element inspector however doesn't change to the new url.

I start at

<link rel="canonical" href="mywebsite.com/page1">

then proceed to click on a link which takes me to mywebsite.com/page2, but the canonical url remains as page1, even though I'm looking at page2. How can I make sure the canonical url updates when I'm taken to a new page?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 05 '21 at 03:31

0

It sounds like the html for page2 is setting the canonical URL.

Does your page2 contain a line like this?

<link rel="canonical" href="mywebsite.com/page1">

You should be able to safely remove the entire line and fix the problem. Are you using a cms or anything else that could messing with things automatically? It's possible the page could be making it look like you went to the new URL when you click on the link without actually reloading doing something like this: modify URL without reloading the page

answered Jun 05 '21 at 03:31

Andrew Hulterstrom

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That's right, it seems like I'm being taken to a new internal page that modifies the displayed (browser) URL and content, but not the canonical URL. By safely removing the line, do you mean removing the canonical href altogether? – honeyflavoredpopsicle Jun 06 '21 at 00:11
Yeas, I would try just removing the line that looks like: `` – Andrew Hulterstrom Jun 06 '21 at 01:08
Unfortunately that complicates other functions. Is there a way to enable ```function refreshPage(){``` whenever you click on an internal link that takes you to a new page in the same tab? – honeyflavoredpopsicle Jun 07 '21 at 00:46
You have functions that depend on the canonical URL? On page2 can you make the canonical URL say ``? – Andrew Hulterstrom Jun 07 '21 at 22:07

Why isn't the canonical url changing?

1 Answers1