{"id":"c22da232-7e7e-452d-8ca4-3de78a1f5359","task":"Resolve conflicting canonical signals across self-referencing, cross-domain, and noindex cases","domain":"canonicalization","steps":["Inventory all canonical signals for a URL set: rel=canonical tag, HTTP Link header, sitemap inclusion, internal links, and any redirect chain","Flag pages where the rel=canonical target conflicts with a noindex directive on the same page — Google treats this as a conflicting signal and may pick either","Flag cross-domain canonicals pointing to a URL that itself 404s, redirects, or is blocked by robots.txt, since an unreachable canonical target gets ignored","Verify every canonicalized page returns 200 directly (not through a redirect) and is self-consistent if it's meant to be its own canonical","Use URL Inspection's \"Google-selected canonical\" field to confirm Google's actual choice matches your declared canonical, and investigate mismatches"],"gotchas":["Google can and does override a stated rel=canonical when it finds the signal unreliable — declared canonical is a hint, not a directive","A canonical tag pointing to a noindex'd or blocked page effectively canonicalizes to nothing usable","Cross-domain canonicals only work when both domains are otherwise crawlable and the relationship looks legitimate to Google — pointing at an unrelated domain is simply ignored"],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-07-08T14:29:42.075Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":"sampled","url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/c22da232-7e7e-452d-8ca4-3de78a1f5359"}