Attention Wix Blog Users: Important Google Search Console Issue – De-Indexing Due to “Duplicate, Google Chose Different Canonical” Error
If you manage a Wix-based blog and have noticed a sudden drop in your organic search traffic, this article may shed light on a critical issue affecting your site’s visibility on Google. Recent reports suggest a widespread problem that causes blog posts to be de-indexed, tagged as duplicates, and potentially hidden from search results due to a technical glitch within Wix’s platform.
The Issue at a Glance
Over the past several months, many Wix bloggers have experienced an alarming decline in their Google search presence. Support tickets and user reports indicate that hundreds of posts are being removed from Google’s index, accompanied by specific error messages in Google Search Console (GSC).
Key symptom to watch for in Google Search Console:
Under the “Coverage” report, look for entries labeled “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user.” This message indicates that Google has identified a conflict in canonical URLs, often resulting in de-indexing of affected pages.
What’s Causing the Problem?
The root cause appears to be intermittent failures of the Wix Blog plugin whenGooglebot attempts to crawl individual blog posts. Instead of serving the expected content, the platform sometimes delivers a generic error page—often a “widget didn’t load” message—when Googlebot visits a post URL.
This inconsistent behavior leads Google to interpret multiple URLs as duplicate content, as they all serve the same erroneous error page. Consequently, Google’s algorithm consolidates these URLs under a single canonical, often choosing the wrong one, and de-indexing the rest.
Interestingly, this issue has been reproduced independently across multiple Wix blogs not even owned by the user experiencing the problem, suggesting a platform-wide bug rather than isolated incidents.
Ongoing Support Struggles and Revelation
Attempting to resolve this problem through Wix Support has been challenging. As of late September, Wix officially recognized the issue as a previously unreported bug needing escalation. However, support interactions have been cyclical, with conflicting claims such as “we cannot reproduce this error,” despite evidence to the contrary.
A particularly concerning development is that a Wix employee—Bertab At (verified email: [email protected])—recently added themselves as an owner of the affected Google Search Console properties. They now have direct access to the same error reports and insights that site owners rely on for troubleshooting. This raises questions about