AMP Page URL has canonical URL which is noindex

This means that the URL in question is an AMP Page URL, and contains a canonical tag pointing to a noindex URL.

Why is this important?

AMP HTML documents are required to have a canonical to the non-AMP equivalent (or a self-reference, if no equivalent exists). If this canonical is pointing to a URL that is noindex, search engines may not index the AMP URL.

The canonical tag is a mandatory element for AMP pages to be considered valid, and the canonical tag is supposed to point back at the original 'non-AMP' version of the page. If this page is noindex, this sends a conflicting signal to search engines - increasing the chances that the AMP page will not show up in search results.

What does the Hint check?

This Hint will trigger for any AMP Page URL which has a canonical tag pointing to a URL that is set to noindex.

Examples that trigger this Hint

Consider the AMP Page URL: https://example.com/amp/page-a/

The Hint would trigger for this URL if it included a canonical URL,

<!doctype html>
<html amp>
 <head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Sample document</title>
  <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/pages/page-a/" /> 
  ...
 </head>
 ...
</html>

where this canonical URL had a noindex in either the <head> or the HTTP header (or both):

Meta noindex in the <head>,

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
 <head>
   <title>example</title>
   <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
    ...
 </head>
 <body>...</body>
</html>

OR in the HTTP header:

HTTP/... 200 OK
...
X-Robots-Tag: noindex

How do you resolve this issue?

The canonical on an AMP page should be pointing to a URL that is indexable.

To rectify the issue, you would need to fix the canonical on the AMP page so that it points back to the (correct) non-AMP version of the page, and ensure that this page does not contain a noindex tag.

You would also need to ensure that the non-AMP version of the page has a self-referencing canonical. It should look like this:

For the URL: https://example.com/pages/page-a/

This page defines a self-reference canonical and an AMP page:

<link rel="amphtml" href="https://example.com/amp/page-a/">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/pages/page-a/" />

Then the AMP page has a canonical pointing back at https://example.com/pages/page-a/

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/pages/page-a/" />

Hints

AMP Page URL has canonical URL which is noindex

Why is this important?

What does the Hint check?

Examples that trigger this Hint

How do you resolve this issue?