Now you all aware that the 301 redirect and canonical have been around for years. The post focus on when to apply 301 redirect and canonical.
Here is what both communicate to Google and Search Engines:
301 Redirects - Hello, Search Engines: My page is no longer available here, and has permanently moved to a new page. So please remove it from your index data and pass (give) credit to the new page.
When to Apply 301
Canonical: Hello, Search Engines: I have many versions of this page (or content), please only index this version. I will make visible other pages for people to see, but do not include them in your index and please pass (give) credit to my preferred page.
When to Apply Canonical
Here is what both communicate to Google and Search Engines:
301 Redirects - Hello, Search Engines: My page is no longer available here, and has permanently moved to a new page. So please remove it from your index data and pass (give) credit to the new page.
- As default – this is the preferred method
- Pages which are being permanently moved or replaced
- Domains that are permanently moved (acquisitions, rebranding, etc.)
- 404 pages and expired content
Canonical: Hello, Search Engines: I have many versions of this page (or content), please only index this version. I will make visible other pages for people to see, but do not include them in your index and please pass (give) credit to my preferred page.
When to Apply Canonical
- When you are not able to implement 301 or take too much time
- Website has duplicate content but you want to keep both pages live
- Website has dynamic pages with multiple URLs of a single page.
- Site-wide considerations like (domain/page/index.html vs. domain/page/ for the same page) can be easy with canonical
