Alternate page with proper canonical tag - caused by referrers

Question

I have some page errors being identified by GSC as "Alternate page with proper canonical tag". The referring url's typically have a query string parameter (that my pages don't have), or a typo in the url. They all come from other domains that I don't control. The few referring pages I've checked, don't seem to be malicious, just incorrect urls.

The real url's all show up fine, and Google identifies the canonical as "Same as user-declared canonical". Since I don't really have control over the referrer and the actual page is in the Google index, do I really need to be concerned about these errors? If they're coming from other referring websites, why is Google flagging them as an error on my site?

Answer 1

No, you don't have to be worried.

Proper canonicalization means Google sees this as correct and expected behaviour.

You may want to look at any page variations with typos coming from referrers and add redirects from those incorrect URLs to the page you want them to go to, for improved UX as much as SEO.