Fix canonical issues, then resubmit: the right sequence for indexability bugs

Canonical tags are the single biggest source of "my page isn't ranking" mysteries. A wrong canonical sends Google to the wrong URL, dilutes your link equity, and makes your most important pages invisible. The Indexing API can't fix canonicals — and pushing a URL with a bad canonical just confirms the bad signal.

The audit-fix-push sequence

1. Run the Indexability Audit on the URL.
2. Look at the "Google-selected canonical" vs the "User-declared canonical" fields.
3. If they differ, decide which one is correct. Usually the user-declared canonical should win — change the page to match.
4. Push the corrected page through IndexerNow.
5. 24-48h later, run Status to confirm Google now reports the correct canonical.

Canonical-tag failure modes

• No canonical tag (Google picks one, often wrong).
• Canonical pointing to a 404 or 301.
• Canonical with a trailing slash mismatch (/page vs /page/).
• Canonical pointing to staging or dev domain.
• Multiple canonical tags on the same page (Google ignores all of them).
• Canonical referencing http when site is https.