How to Fix Index Pages Errors on Blogger: Redirect error and Duplicate Canonical

Fix index pages errors on Blogger like Duplicate without user-selected canonical, alternate page canonical errors, and discovered/crawled pages issue.

How to Fix Index Pages Errors on Blogger: Redirect error and Duplicate Canonical

If you've been facing index pages errors on your Blogger site, you’re not alone. Many bloggers experience these problems, which can affect search engine optimization (SEO). In this post, I'll walk you through several common issues, including "Duplicate without user-selected canonical," "Alternate page with proper canonical tag," and "Discovered and Crawled pages" errors.

1. Duplicate without User-Selected Canonical

Problem: This error typically occurs when a page is considered a duplicate, but there is no canonical tag to tell search engines which page is the "preferred" version.

Solution: Add the following code to remove the duplicate URL parameter and ensure search engines know the preferred version of the page:

<script>
(function() {
  var url = window.location.href;
  if (url.indexOf('?m=1') !== -1) {
    url = url.replace('?m=1', '');
    window.history.pushState(null, null, url);
  }
})();
</script>

Where to Paste the Code: Paste this code inside your Blogger theme settings. Go to Theme > Edit HTML and place this code just before the closing </body> tag in the HTML editor.

2. Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag

Problem: The error occurs when an alternate version of a page is found, but the canonical tag is improperly used or missing.

Solution: Ensure your robots.txt file is set up correctly and restricts non-essential pages from being indexed:

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /category/
Disallow: /tag/
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap-pages.xml

Where to Paste the Code: This code should be added to your robots.txt configuration. In Blogger, go to Settings > Crawlers and Indexing and enable the Custom robots.txt option. Paste the code in the provided text area and click Save Changes.

3. Discovered and Crawled Pages Error

Problem: This issue arises when pages are discovered by search engines but not crawled due to misconfigured settings in your robots.txt file.

Solution: Update your robots.txt to allow proper crawling of your essential pages and prevent unnecessary ones:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /archive
Disallow: /tag/
Disallow: /label/
Disallow: /category/
Disallow: /author/
Disallow: /*?m=1
Disallow: /*?max-results=*
Disallow: /*?updated-max=*
Allow: /$
Allow: /post/
Allow: /p/*

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

Where to Paste the Code: This code should also go in your robots.txt file. Go to Settings > Crawlers and Indexing, enable Custom robots.txt, and paste the updated code into the text box. Be sure to save your changes.

Conclusion

These are some of the common errors faced by Blogger users when it comes to index pages. By following the steps provided above, you should be able to resolve these issues and improve your site's SEO performance. Always ensure that your robots.txt is configured correctly and check for any duplicate or misdirected URLs on your site.

Check for Best Practices

Before implementing any solution, make sure to double-check your setup with a tool like Google Search Console. Keep an eye on how Googlebot crawls your site, and ensure everything is set up for the best user experience and SEO results.

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