Wrong Canonical url link

Question

I have a weird problem.

I have a page that changed URL (because it's parent changed name).

Example Link https:www.mysite.com/my-services/service-1

is now: https:www.mysite.com/services/service-1

the canonical url however is still the original one: https:www.mysite.com/my-services/service-1

which is wrong. (it should be the new link)

This is what I tried:

• I had the redirection plugin to handle the redirect, but have switched that one iff > does not solve the problem

• I have switched of Yoast > doesn't help

• I switched on Yoast again - and explicitely changed the canonical link in the Yoast SEO section of th page > that solves it.

However I don't want to manually have to change a canonical like this. Is there a better solution? Am I missing something? Can I regenerate canonical tags in batch? So many questions - is there someone with an answer?

Thanks a lot in advance, Ingrid

Answer 1

You need to reset your indexables. There are a couple of ways to do this - you can use a WP-CLI command (wp yoast index), or you can use the Yoast Test Helper plugin.

If you install the Yoast Test Helper Plugin, you can go to Tools > Yoast Test. In the "Yoast SEO" box with a bunch of buttons, use the "Reset Indexables tables & migrations" button to flush them. You can then uninstall the plugin, remove your manually-entered canonical URL, and the default (autogenerated) canonical URL will be fixed.

Theoretically, anytime you make a change such as changing a parent page URL, that should trigger Yoast to automatically update its indexables. So it may be worth opening a GitHub issue so they're aware this didn't happen as intended.