Canonical URL points to a different domain
This page's canonical tag points to `another domain`, a different site.
Why it matters
This page's canonical tag points to `another domain`, a different site. That tells search engines the content belongs to that domain and this copy should not rank — so this page is handing its ranking signals to someone else's URL. It is legitimate only when you are deliberately syndicating someone else's content; otherwise it is usually a template copied from another project, or a staging domain left in a hardcoded base URL.
How ShipReady detects it
Search-engine basics, deliberately shallow. Lighthouse does SEO auditing thoroughly, for free, from Google, built into every browser. This module does not try to compete with that and should never grow to. It exists so a ShipReady report is not conspicuously silent on the subject, and it covers exactly the things a founder is likely to have got wrong without knowing — chiefly a `noindex` left over from staging, which makes a site invisible to search entirely. Every rule reads only the page HTML and response headers already fetched by PageContext. The module issues **no HTTP requests of its own**, which is why it can be this cheap: it is pure analysis of bytes the scan already has. Deliberately NOT covered: keyword analysis, backlinks, content quality, Core Web Vitals, and anything else that needs crawling or a second data source. Also not duplicated here: title, description, og:title, robots.txt, sitemap.xml and custom 404, all of which the readiness check already reports.
Detection is deterministic. ShipReady reports this only when it observes the condition directly, and prefers to miss a real problem over inventing one. Rule version 1.3.0.
How to fix it
This is the prompt ShipReady puts in your report — written to be pasted straight into Cursor, Claude Code, or whichever assistant built the app.
This page's canonical tag points at a different domain, which tells search engines the content belongs to that domain and this copy should not rank. Unless you are deliberately syndicating someone else's content, change the canonical to this page's own absolute URL. The usual causes are a template copied from another project with its domain hardcoded, or a base-URL environment variable still set to a staging or vendor domain in production — check whatever value builds your canonical (NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL, metadataBase, or similar) and point it at your real production origin.
Frequently asked questions
- What does "Canonical URL points to a different domain" mean?
- This page's canonical tag points to `another domain`, a different site.
- How serious is it?
- ShipReady rates this medium. Fix soon. Meaningfully weakens a defence or degrades how the site works.
- How do I fix it?
- Paste the fix prompt on this page into Cursor, Claude Code or your AI editor. It is the same prompt ShipReady puts in your report.
- Can I check my own site?
- Yes — ShipReady scans up to ten pages of any public site for free and reports this alongside every other check. The free report lists every issue it finds and shows full evidence and a fix prompt for the critical and high-severity ones; medium and low findings are counted and unlock on Pro.
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