Coverage -> Indexed, not submitted in sitemap

Question

Hello

A) Google insists on indexing pages with the "?show=", although there is a proper CANONICAL tag.  How can I overcome this?

I am looking at Google Search Console.  In "Coverage -> Indexed, not submitted in sitemap" I have several urls listed with the following format:
learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia?show=1152

The correct url is:
learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia

But if you check the source code, I do have the correct canonical statement

So why does google insist to index the  "?show="  pages?

B) A friend told me that I could possibly rectify this by replacing this url:

learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia?show=1152

With this type of url:

learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia#1152

Is there a possibility to do this?

Answer 1

To explain the ?show= parameter: it’s there to ensure the correct page of answers is displayed. So if you have 2 pages of answers it will show the second page. (The canonical will also include the correct page number/start parameter in it too.)

To answer your questions:

A) It’s most likely because your site is new and not very popular yet, so Google is taking its time indexing and updating the site. It found a link to the ?show= version of the URL and ended up indexing that first. In the end there’s no harm since people can get to the page anyway.

B) That won’t work if there are multiple pages of answers as described above. But if the answers are always 1 page then it would work. BTW the correct anchor is #a1152 (the other one may currently work but is likely to be removed in future).

Comments

Hi

My q2a site is more than 4 years old.  If you look at the url, it is only one page.  So no point having the ?show=

I have a problem of duplicate content because both urls are indexed by google:
learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia?show=1152
learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia

The canonical tag shows this one:
learn-greek-online.com/ask-greek/1150/amatheia-vs-agnoia-vs-imimatheia

So how can I get rid of the duplicate content issue?