: When the canonical page itself changes URL This is a continuation of the question: How to handle canonical URL changes like Stack Overflow. Say I have the canon URL: questions/11/car <---canonically-linked-from---

@Cooney921

You'd use a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. That ensures any traffic to the old page is passed on to the new, along with any value (PageRank, etc.) that the original page accrued.

So old.html -- 301 --> new.html

Ideally you'd also update the canonical link element on any pages for which old.html was defined as the canonical version. So where old-variant.html originally had a canonical link element referencing old.html, it should now reference new.html.

If you forget, or are too lazy to do this, it's not the end of the world since the 301 redirect should complete the connection. It's probably not ideal – Google, for example, doesn't like chained redirections, and I suspect they'd have a similar stance on chains of CLEs and redirects – but it should work. However I'd be inclined to view that as a safety net, not a strategy.

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@Turnbaugh106

It sounds to me that you are renaming a URL.

Rel Canonical tells search engines what the master page is, effectively which pages are duplicates.

You do not need to always use the Rel Canon if its in a page with lots of text contained all over your site. For example a /blog/ may have full articles displayed, lots of them. You can't use more than one canon and this case you just don't add the Rel Canonical.

Personally a meta (Noindex, follow) works best, and use the Rel Canonical on the master pages, will explain more later on about the follow.

For example page B (This has Duplicate Content) Page A (Unique Content).

Since Google will not reward duplicate pages there's little point in having them indexed so a better solution is this.

PageA.html you use Rel Canonical="PageA.html"
PageB.html you use

By using the noindex you are automatically telling search engines do not factor this page, with the follow attribute in their you are ensuring that if someone links to the noindex page then juice is feed to the rest of the site, also it means that Google can crawl links found within the page. A noindex, doesn't mean it doesn't get crawled by the way, just means it wont show up in the results. Some say by using the noindex tactic you don't need to use the Rel Canonical on the main but I use it, and its still recommended as if any dupes get though you won't get slapped.

If you have simply renamed the page, cuz your question is pretty board and not exact then simply delete the old page, and 301 it. Some juice always gets lost when renaming pages what ever you do but 301 is the best way forward.

Hope this helps

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