301 Redirect or Canonical Tag or Leave Them Alone? Different Pages - Similar Content
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We currently have 3 different versions of our State Business-for-Sale listings pages - the versions are:
**Version 1 -- Preferred Version: **
http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx
Title = California Business for Sale Ads - California Businesses for Sale & Business Brokers - Sell a Business on Business Broker
Version 2:
http://www.businessbroker.net/Businesses_For_Sale-State-California.aspx
Title = California Business for Sale | 3124 California Businesses for Sale | BusinessBroker.net
Version 3:
http://www.businessbroker.net/listings/business_for_sale_california.ihtml
Title = California Businesses for Sale at BusinessBroker.net - California Business for Sale
While the page titles and meta data are a bit different, the bulk of the page content (which is the listings rendered) are identical. We were wondering if it would make good sense to either (A) 301 redirect Versions 2 and 3 to the preferred Version 1 page or (B) put Canonical Tags on Versions 2 and 3 labeling Version 1 as the preferred version. We have this issue for all 50 U.S. States -- I've mentioned California here but the same applies for Alabama through Wyoming - same issue.
Given that there are 3 different flavors and all are showing up in the Search Results -- some on the same 1st page of results -- which probably is a good thing for now -- should we do a 301 redirect or a Canonical Tag on Versions 2 and 3? Seems like with Google cracking down on duplicate content, it might be wise to be proactive.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
- Matt M
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Thanks for the response.
Do you think we need to stay consistent - for example if we decide to use this version - http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx as the preferred version - should we use this as the preferred version for all states -- even if this version is not the ranking version for a particular state?
Thanks again,
- MM
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Does it matter which version is getting ranked the best in the eyes of Google in terms of which URL's we chose to 301?
If I was doing this I would redirect the pages that rank lowest. The page that ranks highest is there for a reason.
**If we 301 a version that is getting ranked well in Google, does this hurt us in any way? **
I don't know... but your other pages are not ranking as well for a reason.
STICK WITH A WINNER! (However, I might work to improve that page.)
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Hello, you provided a very good response to the question I posed last year. We never pulled the trigger on this change and now it is back on the radar screen. I was hoping you'd be willing to answer a follow-up question for us. Does it matter which version is getting ranked the best in the eyes of Google in terms of which URL's we chose to 301? I started to look at where we rank for certain "state" related keywords -- i.e. Utah Businesses for Sale, etc.. If we 301 a version that is getting ranked well in Google, does this hurt us in any way? For example, if we decide to 301 redirect Version 3 (http://www.businessbroker.net/listings/business_for_sale_california.ihtml) to this page -- http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx - if Version 3 ranks well for keywords like California Business for Sale, etc..
Thanks in advance for any help/guidance on this.
Below is original post.
- Matt M
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Yes, I would do 301 redirects.
I would do that to consolidate my link power into a single page and eliminate the potential for duplicate content problems.
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Thanks for the quick response -- quick question - when you say "eliminate" do you mean to 301 redirect these pages? These are all existing pages that are indexed by Google and have various search positions. Thanks again.
- Matt
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I agree with EGOL. Are the pages being generated? How many search queries will end with the same information?
It looks like your doing URL ReWriting now since the url:
http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale_test.aspx
shows the same information. Start adding canonical to all pages so that the above link will not be seen as duplicated content.
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I looked at version 1 through 3 for California and agree that these pages are substantially similar.
If this was my site I would eliminate version 2 and version 3 and put all of my linkjuice into version 1.
I would not do this without some analytics... and might try an experiment with a couple of states before doing it across the site. However, my bet is that one version will pull about as much traffic as all three versions combined.
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