Google won't index canonical URL for one of my pages

For one of my important pages, Google refuses to index the canonical URL, but instead indexes another URL, ie:
The page that is indexed is /index.php?cPath=45
The page that should be indexed is /index.php?main_page=index&cPath=45

The pages have identical content. I have quite a few internal as well and external links pointing to the canonical URL, but Google refuses to index it.
As far as I can see the rel="canonical" is correctly set. I've used Google Console to fetch and request index, it won't do it.

Ranking this page is important, and I suspect the page is ranking lower, because all links point to the page URL that's not indexed.

Can anyone see any reason why Google would not pick the correct URL?

I could force it with a 301 redirect, but if Google is refusing to index the correct URL, a 301 might lose me ranking for that page altogether.

I don't even know where it's getting the first URL from, I can't even find any internal links to it, and my sitemap has the correct one.

Any ideas guys?

Does anyone here have any ideas about this issue? Thanks guys!

Lots of possible causes. But without your URL it's impossible to give any useful feedback.
We can't assume you mean what's in your signature, cuz people often have multiple sites.

ALWAYS POST A URL IF YOU WANT A MEANINGFUL ANSWER!!!

Sorry, yes it is the site in my signature, so the links are

The page that** is** indexed is https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?cPath=45
The page that should be indexed is https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=45

The usual suspects appear fine:

• the actual canonical rel= link is correct
• doesn't appear to be any undesired redirect
• sitemap.xml contains the correct link
• robots.txt doesn't contain anything confusing

Does WMT tell you where it "got" the link to the wrong page? Maybe there's some heavyweight external source that's pointing to that page?

NO I can't find where Google got it from, I've checked WMTs.

If it's a heavyweight external link, a 301 should fix it.

I've noticed that it's the same for almost all my categories... very strange.

Have you in Google analytics/webmaster tools identified anything about the function of the uri parameter "main_page"?

For one, talking about why a category is not indexed with having the parameter main_page included when the location can be reached without the main_page parameter assigned. It would not surprise me if the Google bot at some point tested the uri with different parameter combinations, identified that there was a "shorter" uri available to reach a location and stored the result. Would suggest also looking at the product uri and see if the cPath parameter is excluded...

This google link seemed to discuss the issue rather well: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en

Interesting. I checked search console. Under crawl>URL parameter>configure URL parameter both main_page and cPath are listed, and both are set to "let googlebot decide". I can edit it, but it only asks "Does this parameter change page content seen by the user?". It does not really allow me to set a preference. I can't exclude cPath because it's used in both URLs.

I suspect you're right though, it's decided the shorter version of the URL is the correct one, despite my canonical statements.

For SEO purposes it may not matter, as long as it passes all the link juice of links to the main_page URL, onto the shorted version of the URL. That would seem logical, but I'm not 100% sure that is the case.

So you could also always change how the canonical link for categories is generated if that would make you feel better... that way the canonical would match the indexed record and still be functional.

Just sayin'.

This link (https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?cPath=45) is not correct, the correctly formed link that your menu links to is (https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=45), which is the canonical link.

~Melanie

mprough:

This link (https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?cPath=45) is not correct, the correctly formed link that your menu links to is (https://tabletennisshop.com.au/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=45), which is the canonical link.

~Melanie
@mprough, where on the site did you find the incorrectly formed link? I looked all over and don't see anyplace where the wrong link actually exists.

Nowhere on the site did I find (index.php?cPath=45) that is my point. OP stated that (index.php?cPath=45) was the correct URL, it's not. The correct URL is being used on all functions in the site, including the canonical.

~Melanie

mprough:

Nowhere on the site did I find (index.php?cPath=45) that is my point. OP stated that (index.php?cPath=45) was the correct URL, it's not. The correct URL is being used on all functions in the site, including the canonical.

~Melanie
That's why I was confused. I thought the OP clearly stated that google was indexing the wrong URL.
Actually, they did.

Still no further ahead.

LOL I misunderstood it, but I see most of the pages are indexed incorrectly. Such as:

index.php?cPath=82
index.php?cPath=89

Issue as noted before in WMT? In all my years I have never seen Google actually change the indexed URL. In fact it's under crawl in WMT and I just peeked in one of my sites and Google has set several parameters including main_page, products_id etc and my urls are indexed correctly.

So... the more likely thing is old url rewriting.

Unfortunately, to resolve this will be near impossible. 2 possible solutions.

1. 301 redirect index.php?cPath=45 to index.php?main_page=index&cPath=45 for all of the incorrect ones indexed. A rewrite is going to be best, but depending on the server setup may not be possible at all. It would have to be a clean, perfect redirect.

2. I would never do this, but in WMT you could remove the urls, thus forcing them to reindex, re-rank too.

~Melanie