One website can have four different addresses before you even get to its pages: HTTP or HTTPS, with or without www. When those variations are not consistently redirected, visitors and search engines can encounter duplicate paths to the same content.
Our new free WordPress plugin, Calico Canonical Redirects, gives site owners a straightforward way to consolidate these variations into one preferred HTTPS domain, with a cautious testing process before permanent redirects go live.
Why www, non-www, HTTP, and HTTPS consistency matters
Consider these variations:
http://example.comhttp://www.example.comhttps://example.comhttps://www.example.com
They can all point toward the same website, but that does not mean they always resolve consistently. Redirecting the supported variations to one preferred address helps visitors reach the correct destination and provides a strong canonicalization signal to Google.
Meet Calico Canonical Redirects
Calico Canonical Redirects is a free WordPress plugin that uses the Site Address configured in WordPress to determine your preferred HTTPS domain. It supports either www or non-www as the destination and preserves paths and accepted tracking query strings when redirecting supported front-end requests.
It focuses specifically on domain and protocol normalization—not editing canonical tags or rewriting individual page content.
Designed for a safer rollout
Redirects deserve testing, particularly because permanent 301 redirects may be cached by browsers and CDNs. Rather than forcing a permanent change immediately, the plugin offers three modes:
- Preview: Examine proposed destinations using the built-in simulator without issuing redirects from this plugin.
- Test — temporary 302: Test real redirect behavior before committing to permanent redirects.
- Live — permanent 301: Enable permanent redirects after verifying the destination and confirming there are no loops.
The controls live under Settings → Canonical Redirects in WordPress. You do not need to manually edit server redirect rules to configure the plugin.
How to install and configure the plugin
- Download the plugin. Visit the Calico Canonical Redirects plugin page and download the ZIP.
- Install it in WordPress. Navigate to Plugins → Add Plugin → Upload Plugin, upload the ZIP, install, and activate it.
- Check your Site Address. Under Settings → General, confirm the HTTPS domain is the address you want to use. The plugin reads this value but does not change it.
- Start with Preview. Review the proposed destinations using Settings → Canonical Redirects. The simulator does not test live certificates or network behavior.
- Check SSL and hosting configuration. Confirm valid certificates for both www and non-www. For Cloudflare, use Full (strict). If HTTPS terminates at a proxy, verify its configuration and trusted immediate proxy IPs with your host.
- Test using 302 redirects. Select Test — temporary 302, save, clear hosting/CDN caches, and test all four variations on real pages, including a page path and tracking query.
- Go live with 301 redirects. When testing confirms the expected behavior without loops, enable Live — permanent 301 and test again.
Google Search Console: “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” explained
Seeing “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” in Google Search Console can be unsettling, especially when you’re trying to improve your website’s visibility. The key distinction: this status usually means Google has identified the page as a duplicate or alternate and recognizes a different URL as canonical. It is not automatically an SEO error, and it does not necessarily need fixing.
For example, if Google finds both https://www.example.com/services/ and https://example.com/services/, and the first URL contains a canonical tag pointing to the second, Google may classify the first as an alternate. If the preferred URL is indexed, that can be entirely expected.
When can canonical redirects help?
Sometimes, a website serves the same content at several protocol or hostname variations while relying only on canonical tags to express a preference. A canonical tag is a hint to search engines; it does not move visitors from the alternate address. A permanent 301 redirect, by contrast, sends users and crawlers to the preferred address and is a strong canonicalization signal.
Calico Canonical Redirects helps consolidate HTTP/HTTPS and www/non-www versions of your website with permanent redirects, reinforcing your preferred URL for Google and visitors.
For this specific kind of duplication, the plugin can be a practical part of your solution: it normalizes supported front-end requests to the HTTPS www or non-www hostname configured as your WordPress Site Address. It preserves the page path and accepted tracking query strings so the visitor reaches the corresponding page on the preferred domain.
When will the plugin not solve the Search Console status?
The “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” label can also describe intentional alternatives such as URL parameters, duplicate article paths, and other content variations that have nothing to do with www or HTTP. Calico Canonical Redirects does not rewrite canonical tags or resolve all types of duplicate content. It also cannot control requests that never reach WordPress because the server or CDN handles them first.
If the alternate URL is supposed to remain accessible and its canonical points to the correct indexed page, the best action may be no action at all. The goal is not to eliminate every alternate URL report; it is to make sure Google indexes the correct destination.
How to evaluate the issue in Search Console
- Open the Page indexing report. Find “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” and review a few example URLs.
- Compare the URLs. Check if the only differences are
httpversushttps, orwwwversus non-www. If so, hostname and protocol redirects may be appropriate. - Inspect the canonical destination. Use URL Inspection to compare the user-declared canonical with Google’s selected canonical, and check whether the preferred URL is indexed.
- Test redirect behavior. Open the alternate URL and confirm whether it sends you to the expected HTTPS hostname. Avoid redirect loops and unrelated destination pages.
- Align your SEO signals. Use the preferred URLs in internal links, XML sitemaps, and canonical tags, and allow time for Google to recrawl.
Important: Enabling redirects does not guarantee the “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” count will drop immediately—or at all. Google may instead report the old address as “Page with redirect,” which can be the correct result. Focus on the preferred destination’s indexability and search performance rather than treating every excluded URL as a failure.
Google explains these distinctions in its documentation on consolidating duplicate URLs and Page indexing report guidance.
What about Google Search Console?
If Google Search Console reports duplicate URLs associated with HTTP/HTTPS or www/non-www variations, consistent redirects can help clarify your preferred version. Google’s guidance treats redirects as a strong canonicalization signal. Keep your sitemap URLs, internal links, and canonical tags aligned with the same preferred destination.
A URL marked Page with redirect is not necessarily a problem when that redirect is intentional. Search engines still need time to recrawl URLs, and Google ultimately decides which canonical URL to index. The plugin does not promise rankings, indexing, or fixes for unrelated coverage issues.
For more context, see Google’s canonicalization documentation.
Important limitations and recovery options
The plugin works with front-end GET and HEAD requests that reach WordPress on supported single-site public domains using standard ports. It does not manage static files served directly by the server, POST requests, admin/login, REST, AJAX, cron, XML-RPC, CLI, or preview requests. It cannot repair SSL certificates, and existing hosting or CDN redirect rules may still apply.
If you need to stop the plugin’s redirects, return to Preview or deactivate it. An emergency-disable option is also available through the CALICO_CANONICAL_REDIRECTS_DISABLED constant in wp-config.php. Keep in mind that cached 301 redirects may persist after changes.
Download Calico Canonical Redirects for free
We build WordPress tools around the practical challenges that arise when managing real websites. Calico Canonical Redirects is designed to make a common technical SEO cleanup task easier to inspect, test, and maintain.
Explore Calico Canonical Redirects and download the free plugin.
