The canonical tag by Google has proved very useful for SEO purposes. It eliminates most duplicate content issues and is very easy to implement. However is it being used correctly?
The Canonical Tag : What Is It For?
The canonical tag in my opinion is for websites that produce multiple version of a page with different URL's. For example :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php
produces the same page as :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-high-low
and :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-low-high
All these variations of the same page could potentially be indexed by Google and be penalized for having duplicate content. If you were to put a 301 re-direct in place that re-directs to : http://www.example.com/product-1.php, then you wouldn't be able to see : http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-high-low etc.
By using <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product-1.php" /> in the <head> part of the HTML document, you could ensure that only one variation of the page get's indexed by Google but all variations of the page would be visible to your customers / audience.
To sum it up the canonical tag is for when you want lots of variations of your page to be visible to your viewers, but you only want one version (the main one) of the page indexed by a search engine. Which leads me on to my next subject nicely..
The 301 Re-direct : What Is It For?
The 301 re-direct is for when you want to change the URL of a page / website. Example:
If you wanted to change http://www.example.com/product-1.php to http://www.example.com/product-2.php
Then you would set up a 301 re-direct from the old page to the new one. By doing this the old page would be inaccessible to viewers and the next time search engines come to index that page they would know that the page has moved location to the URL it get's re-directed to.
Conclusion
The canonical tag would tell Google which page you want to be indexed, but it would still leave both pages visible to viewers. Also quite important; the canonical tag wouldn't pass as much (if any?) link weight (page rank) to the new page.
If you want maximum SEO benefit when changing the URL of a page, you should chose to use a 301 re-direct over the canonical tag.
referred link- http://www.seoconsult.com/seoblog/seo-techniques/what-to-use-a-301-re-direct-or-the-canonical-tag.html
The Canonical Tag : What Is It For?
The canonical tag in my opinion is for websites that produce multiple version of a page with different URL's. For example :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php
produces the same page as :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-high-low
and :
http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-low-high
All these variations of the same page could potentially be indexed by Google and be penalized for having duplicate content. If you were to put a 301 re-direct in place that re-directs to : http://www.example.com/product-1.php, then you wouldn't be able to see : http://www.example.com/product-1.php?sort=price-high-low etc.
By using <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product-1.php" /> in the <head> part of the HTML document, you could ensure that only one variation of the page get's indexed by Google but all variations of the page would be visible to your customers / audience.
To sum it up the canonical tag is for when you want lots of variations of your page to be visible to your viewers, but you only want one version (the main one) of the page indexed by a search engine. Which leads me on to my next subject nicely..
The 301 Re-direct : What Is It For?
The 301 re-direct is for when you want to change the URL of a page / website. Example:
If you wanted to change http://www.example.com/product-1.php to http://www.example.com/product-2.php
Then you would set up a 301 re-direct from the old page to the new one. By doing this the old page would be inaccessible to viewers and the next time search engines come to index that page they would know that the page has moved location to the URL it get's re-directed to.
Conclusion
The canonical tag would tell Google which page you want to be indexed, but it would still leave both pages visible to viewers. Also quite important; the canonical tag wouldn't pass as much (if any?) link weight (page rank) to the new page.
If you want maximum SEO benefit when changing the URL of a page, you should chose to use a 301 re-direct over the canonical tag.
referred link- http://www.seoconsult.com/seoblog/seo-techniques/what-to-use-a-301-re-direct-or-the-canonical-tag.html
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