Canonicalized URL is noindex, nofollow

This means that the URL in question is canonicalized, and also noindex,nofollow.

Why is this important?

The point of a canonical is to explicitly and unambiguously indicate a preferred URL. If Page A is canonicalized to Page B, the instruction to search engines is 'don't index me, index Page B instead.' However, canonicals consolidate and combine indexing signals, so if Page A has a noindex on it, this noindex may also get passed through to Page B.

As such, noindex and rel=canonical should not be used together.

Google's John Mueller offers more clarity in a Reddit thread where he answered this question at length:

John Mueller Response

What does the Hint check?

This Hint will trigger for any internal URL that is noindex, nofollow, and contains a canonical link element that points to another URL.

Examples that trigger this Hint:

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

The Hint would trigger for this URL if it had a canonical URL pointing at another internal page, and robots set to noindex nofollow:

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>example</title>
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/page-b" />
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" />
...
</head>
<body>...</body>
</html>

How do you resolve this issue?

This is a scenario where the canonical has explicitly been set to another URL, and the robots directives only serve to confuse search engines and/or weaken the signal. The solution is simply to remove the robots directives, so that they do not interfere with the canonical.

Further Reading

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