Translated pages (?tl=) not indexed by Google due to canonical tag pointing to original URL instead of self-referencing

Support
1

Hello :waving_hand:

I’ve enabled content localization with the following admin settings:

  • content_localization_enabled :white_check_mark:
  • content_localization_supported_locales (en, fr) :white_check_mark:
  • content_localization_crawler_param enabled :white_check_mark:

However, I noticed that translated pages are mostly not being indexed by Google. In Google Search Console, translated URLs show the status “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” meaning Google is intentionally skipping them.

The cause appears to be that translated pages have a canonical tag pointing to the original URL instead of self-referencing.

Current behavior:

<!-- on ?tl=fr page -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://site.com/t/topic/123" />

Expected behavior:

<!-- on ?tl=fr page -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://site.com/t/topic/123?tl=fr" />

Since Google ignores hreflang tags when the canonical points to a different URL, none of the translated pages get indexed.

Is this a known issue or is there a workaround?

Thanks!

1 Like
2

Isn’t that what @nat said is expected ?

2 Likes
3

Yeah that’s it, thanks for the clarification!