How do I fix "Duplicate without user-selected canonical"

[TheINIC]

Google again! I keep getting "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" every 3 or 4 months when Google drops by.

The site is small, 1 page. Page contains 1 animated script, and below that, one contact form. The site is for a local business and doesn't need to play the Google popularity game.

Ideas?
BTW - I asked at Google forums - 3 times in last year. Still waiting for answer. I know it's faster here.

Thanks for the read - IMO volunteers are very valuable in forums.

[Webdongle]

Searching for
Duplicate without user-selected canonical
I found top result

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +canonical

Google has found identical or very similar content on your website but has not been able to determine which page is the original/canonical

I suggest you create a site map and submit it to Joomla. I use https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/osmap/

[Per Yngve Berg]

I suggest you create a site map and submit it to Joomla. I use https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/osmap/

Submit to Google.

[shumisha]

Hi

If your site has only one page (the home page, by definition), then you don't need to care about all this.
What's happening is that Google finds links to your home page, likely with additional query strings:

https://www.yoursite.com/?bla=1

As this renders the same content as your home page, they see that https://www.yoursite.com/?bla=1 is a duplicate of https://www.yoursite.com/.

Normally, you'd have some way to tell them that https://www.yoursite.com/?bla=1 is in fact the same as https://www.yoursite.com/?bla=1:

- either by adding a rel=canonical tag poiting at https://www.yoursite.com/ in your page
- or adding noindex tags, redirects, etc

But again, your site has one page: just entirely forget about all this.

[Webdongle]

Thanks @Per. I made a typo

[TheINIC]

Searching for
Duplicate without user-selected canonical
I found top result

https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +canonical

Google has found identical or very similar content on your website but has not been able to determine which page is the original/canonical

I suggest you create a site map and submit it to Joomla. I use https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/osmap/

Thanks @Webdongle. Yes, I found it too and it made no sense to me. I will create another (new) site map and have Google try again. Too, I will follow the advice from ya'all where I can.

I understand @shumisha post and now I understand, I hope, what canonical means to Google.

Thanks everyone for your time and content,
~Ti

[MissAHansley]

In my opinion to fix the duplicate without user canonical issue, you need to identify the duplicate pages on your site using tools like GSC. You can also use 301 redirects.