[Solushunz Technologies]

Can anyone please tell me what is the difference between 301 redirect and Canonical issue..?

[GalaxyTramp]

There is a good explanation here

Nice font (not) by the way!!!!!!

[Jason Dexter]

Solushunz Technologies, on 25 January 2012 - 11:56 AM, said:

Can anyone please tell me what is the difference between 301 redirect and Canonical issue..?

301 Redirect: Used when you have multiple domains, looking to redirect non-www version to www version, URL restructuring, moving content from one domain to another, to make URL's sexier looking.

Canonical: Prevents duplicate content within a domain.

So you could have multiple domains and you can use 301 to redirect them to the main domain. From there, you can use the canonical tag to ensure there is no duplicate content across your website

[sussextech]

Canonical tag particularly useful in cases such as e-commerce where session ID's, filters and such sorts or other parameters cause duplicate content that you can't redirect without fudging something functionality wise. The canonical tag indicates what should be the 'primary' page to search engines.

Something I've seen happen quite a lot, especially on CMS' and E-Commerce packages is sticking in the canonical tag on the template. This will make the canonical tag site-wide but using the same URL rather than being applicable to individual pages. You may notice a drop in the number of your pages indexed if you happen to do this!

Remember though, in many instances you may not need the canonical tag. A 301 may be a better choice depending on the circumstances.

[rallport]

JUst a note about the canonical tag. It's not a 100% guarenteed way of preventing duplicate content. Matt Cutts says it is a "strong signal to search engines"

Hiowever, to see how powerful this tag can be, have a read of http://www.seomoz.or...anonicalization - it's a very interesting (and daring!) experiment

This post has been edited by rallport: 09 February 2012 - 07:20 PM