Definition pages have been de-indexed by Google search with the following issue noted for these pages:
"Duplicate without user-selected canonical"
This has had a major impact on traffic to this content as it is down more than 95% compared to July.
When Google hits the page, it appears that the crawler is not getting the canonical URL set by the application for the individual terms. I'd assume it is also not getting the other SEO fields like page title and meta-data. It isn't that they aren't being set correctly by the app, it is more that the crawler isn't registering that information. Maybe it is a timing thing?
Issue description
Definition pages have been de-indexed by Google search with the following issue noted for these pages: "Duplicate without user-selected canonical"
This has had a major impact on traffic to this content as it is down more than 95% compared to July.
When Google hits the page, it appears that the crawler is not getting the canonical URL set by the application for the individual terms. I'd assume it is also not getting the other SEO fields like page title and meta-data. It isn't that they aren't being set correctly by the app, it is more that the crawler isn't registering that information. Maybe it is a timing thing?
Here is more info from Google on this particular crawl error type: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203#duplicate_page_without_canonical_tag
Examples, though this is affecting almost all terms in the dictionary: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-drug/def/lyophilized-black-raspberry-lozenge https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/cll-sll
Steps to reproduce the issue
What's the expected result?
Pages should be indexed
What's the actual result?
Pages are not indexed
Related Tickets
https://github.com/NCIOCPL/glossary-app/issues/291