Mobile browsing continues to dominate website traffic trends year after year.
And Google has taken notice – pushing AMP pages ever further as a required aspect of mobile SEO best practices.
Adoption is growing rapidly. Recent surveys show nearly 50% of sites now have AMP implemented.
However, technical errors can sometimes arise that threaten your mobile rankings – like duplicate canonical tags.
If you‘ve recently switched to the increasingly popular RankMath WordPress plugin, you may have run into just this frustrating problem across your AMP pages.
Not to worry!
In this comprehensive 2,800+ word guide, I‘m going to walk you through exactly why this happens, how to fix it properly, and additional tips for optimizing AMP performance with RankMath moving forward.
Let‘s dig in!
Why Mobile Matters
To really understand the root causes behind AMP issues, we first need to recognize why Google is pushing the technology in the first place.
As I covered earlier, the dominance of mobile browsing is only intensifying over time:
- Over 60% of site traffic is now mobile
- The shift is estimated to grow to over 75% by 2025
And understandably, Google wants their index and SERPs to better reflect actual consumer behavior – namely, heavy and increasing reliance on smartphones and tablets.
AMP helps them accomplish that in two key ways:
- Lightning Fast Mobile Pages – By stripping down bloated page code to the bare essentials, AMP enables much faster load times on mobile devices with limited bandwidth
- Enhanced Indexing Control – Google pre-caches AMP pages which allows them tight control over the mobile presentation
For site owners, implementing AMP unlocked a special Top Stories mobile-only placement with enormous traffic potential…
But only if your AMP configurations meet strict technical requirements.
Which brings us back around to why fixing errors – like duplicate RankMath canonical tags – matters tremendously!
Mobile indexing impacts aside though, solving tech problems almost always leaves you with a faster, leaner site. So effort invested almost always pays dividends beyond Google AMP happiness.
Now let‘s explore specifically why this particular RankMath glitch emerges…
Behind the Scenes: Why the Error Occurs
Before we get to the step-by-step resolution, it helps to better understand what‘s causing the duplicate canonical tag scenario under the hood.
The conflict arises from how WordPress plugins interact with Google‘s AMP protocol.
Here‘s a quick overview of the core players:
- AMP Plugin – Implements AMP functionality across your WordPress site by generating stripped down AMP-compliant versions of pages
- RankMath Plugin– For SEO optimization, including output of canonical tags
- Canonical Tags – Tell Google which page version is authoritative for indexing
Now RankMath also outputs canonical tags by default on AMP pages for sound SEO practices.
So what goes wrong?
The AMP plugin doesn‘t automatically realize RankMath already has canonical functionality covered. So it proceeds to ALSO generate its own canonical output resulting in frustrating duplication.
Google flags this as an error during mobile indexing because only one canonical tag is permissible.
The good news?
Easy to resolve by instructing the AMP plugin to ignore canonical duties specifically – allowing RankMath‘s singleton canonical management to work properly.
Phew! Glad we got that bit of arcane AMP knowledge covered.🧐
Now let‘s briskly walk through the quick steps to banish this beast from your site for good!
Or better yet, avoid having the issue crop up as you implement AMP + RankMath for the first time!
Fixing Duplicate Canonical Tags in 3 Simple Steps
Here is precisely how to nip AMP + RankMath canonical duplication errors in the bud once and for all:
- Login to your WordPress dashboard, and navigate to: AMP » Settings » SEO
- Under "SEO Plugin", explicitly select Rank Math SEO
- Verify that "Canonical" from Rank Math is enabled (shows green)
- Click save!
This sequence tells the AMP plugin:
"Hey! RankMath‘s already got canonical functionality under control. So don‘t generate any additional canonical output."
Now only ONE canonical tag surfaces on AMP pages – keeping Google validation happy.
Let‘s check out screenshots of fixing this the right way:
The key AMP plugin options for resolving duplicate canonical
Critical RankMath settings to enable proper AMP canonical functionality
Pretty straightforward right?
But should we verify everything is OK post-fix?
Validating Canonical Resolutions
When wrestling with technical SEO gremlins, always, always verify that your attempted solutions actually worked!
Google provides an incredibly useful tool for analyzing your AMP‘s precise implementation errors and warnings.
Visit Google‘s Search Console today while logged into the appropriate site property, and navigate to:
Inspect URL » AMP
Or use this direct link to test any page:
https://search.google.com/search-console/inspect/amp
Paste in your full AMP URL to scan for lingering issues. Specifically, you should see no more errors related to duplicate or missing canonical tags when configuring RankMath properly.
For bonus points, enter additional AMP links from your site to spot check that things check out across the board!
If you still catch canonical errors, carefully walk through the resolution steps again.
But the inspection tool should reflect an error-free implementation post-fix.
Googlebot should finally stop yelling at you now about your RankMath + AMP pages once configured correctly. 🙌
Onward to further optimizing this powerful SEO plugin combo!
RankMath + AMP: A Potent SEO Partnership
Now that everything‘s tidied up code-wise between RankMath and AMP under the hood, let‘s explore how these two can cooperate to take your pages to the next level!
Customize RankMath‘s AMP Functionality
Dig into RankMath‘s detailed AMP settings beyond just canonicals to craft an optimized integration across features like:
- RSS Feed Links
- Schema Markup
- Open Graph Tags
Leverage the plugin‘s deep configuration options to fine-tune AMP behaviour exactly as you need on a site by site basis.
For example, confirm that tantalizing Open Graph images are populated across channels.
Monitor Ongoing AMP Performance
Keep sharp watch with RankMath‘s built-in AMP analysis functionality for tracking:
- Indexing rates
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Position history
- Traffic value
These insights help you react quickly to newly emerging high-priority optimization opportunities.
So keep an eye out for changes post AMP-fix!
Regularly Audit AMP Implementations
Even if the sticky duplicate canonical tag issue is banished, other validation problems or indexing show stoppers could always surface.
So make Google‘s free inspection tool a recurrent friend to keep all AMP output squeaky clean through automatic quarterly checks!
No developer or technical expertise required to scan regularly using this user friendly resource.
Fix RankMathcanonical Errors in 1-Click
After all this, still struggling with duplicate canonicals from RankMath + AMP?
No sweat!
The outstanding RankMath support community maintains a dedicated plugin called AMP Updater that automatically resolves these errors in a single click.
Read all about it direct from the source:
AMP Updater plugin will update the AMP plugin’s SEO settings and configure it to use RankMath for canonical URLs instead of duplicating canonical tags.
So if you find yourself short on time but still need this headache banished from your mobile pages, install this plugin without delay to enable the quick fix!
Closing Thoughts
Whew, quite a journey!
But hopefully you now have much greater clarity on precisely why RankMath can sometimes spew duplicate canonical tags across AMP pages.
Even more importantly – exactly how to resolve these pesky technical glitches for good through 3 simple configuration tweaks.
No advanced technical skills required!
With your toolkit now stocked for keeping AMP implementations error free moving forward, the sky‘s the limit on tapping RankMath + AMP to elevate your mobile SEO to the next level.
Let me know if any other aspects of amping up site speed and quality with this popular SEO plugin combo remains fuzzy!
Now enjoy unleashing your perfectly optimized AMP pages onto the world!
