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Using rel canonical and redirect between 3 pages! Rare case

by michealtech
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi all,

We have 3 pages with similar topics. Let's say A, B and C. A and B pages have more similar content but C is little away. We would like to use rel canonical to avoid ranking these 3 pages in search results. As per the scenario, we must use rel canonical between A & B; but I want to highlight page C. So I am planning to rel canonical from A to C and redirect B to C. If B is left still, rel canonical might be ignored by Google. Is this correct way to proceed with?

Thanks
#canonical #case #pages #rare #redirect #rel
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Confusing post. I almost stopped when you said "We would like to use rel canonical to avoid ranking these 3 pages in search results" thinking, surely he wants to rank at least one of the pages.

    I don't know how to respond to "If B is left still" because I do not know what that means and I hope you didn't mean to say that you would REDIRECT B to C.

    If you want C to be the only indexed page, you would rel canonical both A and B to C.

    Of course, whenever I hear these kind of things I can't help but wonder why pages A and C exist at all. They either need to be trashed and their URLs 301'd to C or they need entirely different content on the pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author michealtech
      Hi Dave,

      Thanks for the response and suggestions. Unfortunately we have 2 duplicate pages and 1 similar page for every topic. We thought of canonical 2 duplicate page and show one of them; but again just wondered why don't we eliminate the 2 duplicate pages and show the one page with similar content. Duplicate pages are with almost same content and similar page is not with same content but the context is same and our priority to rank for.

      Can we canonical between duplicate pages (A and B) and then redirect B to C? What happens when we are pointing to a page which has been already redirected?

      And can we canonical two duplicate pages (A and B) to page C? Will Google respects it? Rather than canonical between 2 duplicate pages, we are pointing the 2 duplicate pages to other page.

      Other wise, we are thinking to delete one of the duplicate pages (A or B) and canonical the other page to C?

      Please suggest and share your ideas.

      Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Noman Asghar
    dave_hermansen I have the same case and my all 3 pages are ranked on the Google, is it a bad practice?
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by Noman Asghar View Post

      dave_hermansen I have the same case and my all 3 pages are ranked on the Google, is it a bad practice?
      The worst-case scenario here is that Google's algorithm will make a decision and decide to index/rank only one of the three pages and it may not be the one of the three that you prefer. Still, it gets them to your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Roy
    You should only be using rel=canonical for IDENTICAL pages and/or pages that are SUBSTANTIALLY similar, such as 2 pages with identical content but presented in a different way.

    You shouldn't be using rel=canonical for any other circumstance what-so-ever.

    If you want Google to ignore A and B, then only rank C.... You should set up a 301 permanent redirect on pages A and B to page C.
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