: Canonical URL to refer to other page, although it is not exactly duplicate content? We are hosting recurring events, and when you search in Google for that event, you always get an ealier installment

@Mendez628

I guess the solution to your page is not rel=canonical because even when this might acomplish you goal, this may confuse Googlebot and result on lower ranking of the entire site based on the vague idea of "I don't understand this page" (plus, Google treats rel=canonical as a signal, not an order). In your case, I would add two things (both) to your HTML (adding only one -any of them- should solve the problem, but the more info we give to Google, the better they understand the site and this is better for us):


Schema Event Markup:


This was not created to solve your problem, but it could. Also it may makes your event appears in the Google Knowledge Graph. Please, note the endDate part.

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "Event",
"name": "Miami Heat at Philadelphia 76ers - Game 3 (Home Game 1)",
"location": {
"@type": "Place",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"addressLocality": "Philadelphia",
"addressRegion": "PA"
},
"url": "wells-fargo-center.html"
},
"offers": {
"@type": "AggregateOffer",
"lowPrice": "",
"offerCount": "1938"
},
"startDate": "2016-04-21T20:00",
"endDate": "2016-04-21T21:30", // This is the part yyou are looking for
"url": "nba-miami-philidelphia-game3.html"
}
</script>



"Unavailabe After" Meta Tag:


If you are shy about Schema Markup, is too hard for you or you want to give the more information to Google to ensure the result, there is a Meta Tag created exactly for what you are looking for:

<META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”unavailable_after: 23-Jul-2016 18:00:00 EST”>

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@BetL925

Treating recurrent events is indeed not so easy. To avoid duplicate content issues, the best option is to use the same page each year (same URL), especially if the content is very similar. For this, think about not to use the date in the URL.

With this solution, you can take benefits of the old page SEO and you'll be sure to rank first the new event in the search engines. From my opinion, it is a pity to lose all the SEO work of the events each year but if you don't care about it, you can put the rel="canonical" tag on the old event page with the reference of the new event page URL (not the opposite!). Not sure the old event page will disappear from search engines but you're safe regarding duplicate content issues.

If you want to keep the old event page available for your users, think about change the URL and not to index it in the search engines anymore (by using the no-index meta tag and add the URL in your robots.txt for instance).

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