: Canonical links for huge websites Let's say I have 5 products that are identical but the product code, the product color specifications and the product image. The title, meta and description

@Ann8826881

You should not use canonical for product variations.

The canonical link relation must only be used for "content that is either duplicative or a superset of the content", which doesn’t seem to apply in your case.

Your pages (= representing products) are not duplicative (as they have a different color, image and product code and price; probably/hopefully also a different title). And neither is one of them a superset (which would be the case if you’d had an overview page containing all the information about all available variations).

Some search engines might only index the canonical variant. If this would be a page selling a red t-shirt, searchers wouldn’t be able to find your pages selling blue or green t-shirts in those search engines.
Some price comparison services might only index your canonical product, so that you only appear in the "Red T-Shirt" list, leaving your competitors as the only ones selling blue and green shirts.
Etc.

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@Murray432

If you change the master page, Google might take a while to pick up on it. If you're unlucky, the previous master page will get unindexed and the new one won't be indexed yet... I wouldn't change the master-page. If the product is sold out, just post a "suggested items" link, that way people searching for the item will be helped and the master page will remain the same and indexed.

Edit: since only the colors differ, the links are already there in the dropdown menu. I wouldn't change the master product at all, even if it's sold out. Just make sure it's obvious that other colors might not be sold out.
If the item becomes inactive, you can make another item the master, but I wouldn't expect Google to pick up on it immediately and I'd expect a hit in visits for that item until Google finds the new one.

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