301 redirect vs canonical links?

Question

For technical reasons on a site we may have two or more links that refer to the same product page. For example:

http://example.com/a-nice-product-no1234.html

and:

http://example.com/a-nice-foobar-product-no1234.html

Apparently the first one is the "correct" link. What is the right approach when the second link is opened?

Approach 1)

Redirect 301 to the first link

Approach 2)

Status 200 and

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/a-nice-product-no1234.html">

in the HTML head? Is approach 2) applicable for other search engines than Google? Other suggestions?

Thank you!

I think the proper answer to this question requires more context. Are the duplicate links in any way invalid? Is it the exact same content? Do you intend to remove the duplicates? — Captain Giraffe, Mar 27 '12 at 11:46
They are absolutely identical. The second one is "a little bit" invalid :-) But since they are matched with an army of regexps they all resolve to the same page (a very long story). — Lachezar Balev, Mar 27 '12 at 11:51

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 27 '12 at 11:55

If

http://example.com/a-nice-foobar-product-no1234.html

Is in any way invalid or you have the intention of removing it a 301 Moved Permanently is the way to go.

A technical discussion from google of rel="canonical" shows it should be used to indicate original content, as opposed to say, the same content ordered differently, using different formatting and so on.

This will also have the benefit of users not bookmarking and using links to these "slightly invalid" pages. Making their use lessen over time.

Your answer makes sense. Thanks for your time, captain. – Lachezar Balev Mar 27 '12 at 12:19 — Lachezar Balev, Mar 27 '12 at 12:19

301 redirect vs canonical links?

1 Answers1