If you’ve ever gotten a message from Google Search Console with something about canonical tags, and your immediate reaction was “My SEO is doomed!”—don’t worry. You’re not alone, and more importantly, your site is (probably) totally fine.
Let’s break this down into plain English
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
- Canonical tags are not bad.
- Google uses them to choose one version of a duplicate page.
- Showit sites often trigger this because of trailing slashes.
- 99% of the time, nothing is broken and there’s nothing to fix.
- Breathe easy, check Search Console, and move on with your SEO greatness.
What Is a Canonical Tag, Anyway?
When Google sees multiple versions of the same content, it doesn’t want to list them all in search results—that would just clutter things up and confuse users. So instead, it picks one preferred version of the page (called the “canonical” version) and treats that as the main one.
A canonical tag is just a little bit of code in your page that says:
“Hey Google, if you find other pages that look just like this one, treat this page as the official one.”
And if you didn’t add a canonical tag yourself? No biggie. Google’s smart enough to decide on its own which version it prefers.
Here’s the important part:
This is not a penalty.
It doesn’t mean your content is in trouble.
And it definitely doesn’t hurt your SEO (unless you’re doing something truly weird, like duplicating every page 15 times on purpose).
In fact, canonical tags help Google make better decisions about your site. They’re like a helpful road sign that keeps your SEO clean and your search results tidy.
Why This Happens (Especially on Showit Websites)
This comes up a lot on Showit websites, and here’s the usual culprit:
You’ve got two URLs for the same page:
yourwebsite.com/aboutyourwebsite.com/about/
Notice the only difference? A trailing slash at the end.
To a human, those look identical. But to Google, they’re technically two different URLs. Since showing both in search results would be redundant and kind of pointless, Google picks one (let’s say the one without the slash) and marks it as the “canonical” version.
That’s what that message means.
Should I Be Worried?
Short answer? Probably Not
Long answer? Unless you’re seeing weird indexing issues that go beyond the trailing slash thing. But from what most SEOs and developers are seeing, 99% of the time it’s just this minor slash-versus-no-slash situation.
You can double-check in your Search Console under Indexing > Pages to see exactly which pages are being indexed and which ones aren’t. That’ll help you feel more in control if you’re still feeling uneasy.
Why People Freak Out
We get it. Seeing “Not indexed” or “Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical” in Search Console can feel like a five-alarm fire. But it’s usually just a mix-up caused by slightly different URLs that lead to the exact same page.
If you’re working with clients, it’s a good idea to walk them through this, or even just show them the difference between the two URLs so they can see it for themselves. It calms the nerves.
