301 vs Canonical - With A Side of Partial URL Rewrite and Google URL Parameters-OH MY

[TStorm]

Hi Everyone, I am in the middle of an SEO contract with a site that is partially HTML pages and the rest are PHP and part of an ecommerce system for digital delivery of college classes. I am working with a web developer that has worked with this site for many years.

In the php pages, there are also 6 different parameters that are currently filtered by Google URL parameters in the old Google Search Console.

When I came on board, part of the site was https and the remainder was not. Our first project was to move completely to https and it went well. 301 redirects were already in place from a few legacy sites they owned so the developer expanded the 301 redirects to move everything to https. Among those legacy sites is an old site that we don't want visible, but it is extensively linked to the new site and some of our top keywords are branded keywords that originated with that site. Developer says old site can go away, but people searching for it are still prevalent in search.

Biggest part of this project is now to rewrite the dynamic urls of the product pages and the entry pages to the class pages.  We attempted to use 301 redirects to redirect to the new url and prevent the draining of link juice. In the end, according to the developer, it just isn't going to be possible without losing all the existing link juice. So its lose all the link juice at once (a scary thought) or try canonicals.

I am told canonicals would work - and we can switch to that. My questions are the following:

1.  Does anyone know of a way that might make the 301's work with the URL rewrite?

2.  With canonicals and Google parameters, are we safe to delete the parameters after we have ensures everything has a canonical url (parameter pages included)?

3.  If we continue forward with 301's and lose all the existing links, since this only half of the pages in the site (if you don't count the parameter pages) and there are only a few links per page if that, how much of an impact would it have on the site and how can I avoid that impact?

4.  Canonicals seem to be recommended heavily these days, would the canonical urls be a better way to go than sticking with 301's.

Thank you all in advance for helping! I sincerely appreciate any insight you might have.

Sue (aka Trudy)

[TStorm]

Thanks for the solid advice, I really didn't know what to do. Your explanation of canonical and 301 and how they really work was clear and very helpful. Thank you for your response!

[EGOL]

The difference between a 301 and a canonical...

With a 301, you set it up and it immediately moves the visitor and the link juice to a new URL.  Guaranteed - as long as you hold the 301 in place (mine will be up until I am a dead man - and beyond if instructions in my business continuity plan are obeyed).

With a canonical, the visitor is not moved to the target URL, thus lost traffic.  You also must trust google to obey the canonical (and they often do not, especially if the old and the target URL have differing content.

Comments....

"Developer says old site can go away, but people searching for it are still prevalent in search."   If this was my business, the developer would be ordered to set up the 301s.

"We attempted to use 301 redirects to redirect to the new url and prevent the draining of link juice. In the end, according to the developer, it just isn't going to be possible without losing all the existing link juice."    I am not an expert on this... but I do know that when "developer says that it just isn't going to be possible" often means... "I don't know how to do it"... "I don't wanna think hard to figure it out"...   and that a better developer can often get the job done.   If this was my business, I would be looking for a highly skilled developer to help the current developer with this problem.   The current developer might learn something, or I might look like a dumb biz owner to him.  I'll take the risk with my ego but I will not risk my biz to avoid taking a risk with the developer's ego.    It's all about ego and I risk mine all of the time to get things done using best practice.