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Kurt,

Just wanted to let you know, I decided to go with option 1 above.  This is the long route, but the purest form of SEO.  It will cost me more money up front, and will take time to develop, but I think its our best bet for the long run.

Thanks again for your help.  I understand the canonical tag better now.

Rob

Yes, I am actually one of those third party affiliates, so I need to remove those pages from the index as currently there are 61,000 pages indexed (all duplicate, affiliate content).

As I slowly build SEO pages I plan to index my SEO side of the site bit by bit. The strange thing is that teh SEM pages do have links, they are coming organically just from being in the publics eye.  In a way its a nice problem to have, as I'm hoping to capture the juice and funnel it over to the new SEO pages.  make sense?

Best,

Rob

PS - i'm up for coffee anytime.  I'll let you know when I'm in town.

Kurt,

Thanks again for your insights.  I appreciate you taking the time to comprehend my question so thoroughly.  I am still learning this, and its good to get your input.  I am leaning toward doing this without a canonical tag.  I still feel that by adding the canonical tag it should send a clear signal to Google that I'm not trying to manipulate the results, as I'm effectively removing those pages from the index.  But if they "think" (and thats all that matters) I'm trying something wrong, then its probably not worth it.

I'll have to think about what my best course of action is, as this will have a big impact on how I proceed.

Thanks again for your input.  I do appreciate it.

Best,

Rob

One more thought.

I could see Google seeing my strategy as manipulation - trying to rank the same piece of content for multiple keywords if I didn't have a canonical tag on the page.

But if I reference one page and designate it as canonical I would think that removes the spam aspect.  Do you agree with this?

What I'm not sure about though is how does Google read a page with a canonical tag on it.  Will they ignore the unique title and description - and I lose the "supporting" pages on my other silos.

I appreciate your inputs on this - and i'm not trying to argue, just hoping (maybe in vain) I can find an alternative to the 2 options you present above.

Best,

Rob

Thanks for your response Kurt.

This is slowly coming to me.  But if I have five duplicate versions of a hotel property page, and reference one of them as canonical, I would be fine if Google disregarded the other 4 as I only need to rank for one of those pages.

What I do want to accomplish though, is get a ranking boost for the main page in the silo(s).  I'm hoping that the supporting pages (which are duplicates and have a canonical tag on them) will provide some lift to the top level page in the silo.

Example:  keyword "hotels in downtown Dallas"  www.abc.com/hotels-in-dallas/downtown/   to get a boost from supporting pages which also have the term "near downtown Dallas" in their title / description.

Are you saying that Google will not even recognize the unique title / description of the property pages below - because they have a canonical tag referencing a different page?

If that is the case, then you are right, I am left with the two options you give above.  I don't really like either scenario as option 1 is a lot more work and money, and option 2 really dilutes my theme.  Are you sure that Google considers what I want to do as spam - even though its completely legit?  Just want to double check.  

Best,

Rob

Thanks Federico,

I think I understand what your recommending.  I just have one more thing to clarify.

I plan to build landing pages for a variety of city hotel related terms such as:

"hotels in Dallas"
"hotels in downtown Dallas"
"hotels with suites in Dallas"
"three star hotels in Dallas"
"hotels with pools in Dallas"

Its quite possible that one hotel fits in all of those silos.  So my thought was I would write content for a property one time, and re-use that page in multiple silos.  I am not trying to mislead search engines, just optimizing for a variety of "facts" about that property.

I know the canonical tag can be used across domains, so I'm assuming its fine to use it here, even though there is a slight variation in the Title and Description.  What I don't know is whether or not Google will read a page when it encounters a canonical tag, or does it simply stop at that point, and reference the root page.  I'm hoping that I can build a consistently themed silo - all pages with a common keyword.  Given that Google allows users to navigate to the URL of pages that have a canonical tag on them, I'm hoping that Google sees that content, and recognizes me as a subject matter expert.

If I can't use the canonical tag, then I would be forced to write different content multiple times for the same property page...

Thanks for your advice on this.

Rob

I am building a new SEO site with a "Silo" / Themed architecture.  I have a travel website selling hotel reservations.  I list a hotel page under a city page - example, www.abc.com/Dallas/Hilton.html   Then I use that same property under a segment within the city - example www.abc.com/Dallas/Downtown/Hilton.html, so there are two URLs with the same content

Both pages are identical, except I want to customize the Title and Description.  I want to customize the title and description to build a consistent theme - for example the /Downtown/Hilton page will have the words "Near Downtown" in the Title and Description, while the primary city Hilton page will not.  So I have two questions about this.

1. First, is it okay to use a canonical tag if the Title and Description are slightly different?  Everything else is identical.

2. If so, will Google crawl and comprehend the unique Title and Description on the "Downtown" silo?

I want Google to see that I have several "supporting" pages to my main landing page(s).  I want to present to Google 5 supporting pages in each silo that each has a supporting keyword theme.  But I'm not sure if Google will consider content of pages that point to a different page using the canonical tag.

Please see this supporting example:  http://d.pr/i/aQPv

Thanks for your insights.

Rob

Carson,

BTW - thanks for answering my question - that was a complicated question, and it took some thought on your part to answer it.  I appreciate it.

Also - I see you are in the Salt Lake City area.  I am moving to SLC in the next few months.  Currently I'm traveling there for business one week per month.  It would be neat to meet you in person.  Let me know if you are interested, and maybe we can connect in person one of these days.

Rob

Carson,

Thanks for your response.  I had been planning to no-index the canonical page because the canonical version has affiliate (duplicate) content in it.  My new SEO page has unique content, and is different than the other SEM pages - both the root canonical page, as well as its parameter URL's.  So as it stands now, I am consolidating the SEM pages (parameter pages) using a canonical - pointing to the root SEM URL (which also has affiliate content).  Then I am no-indexing, follow that page - and linking to the new SEO page using a link in the breadcrumbs to pass the link juice.

If I don't do this, my only alternative is to try and make the SEM page be the same as the SEO page and canonicalize the SEO page - but that will handcuff me quite a bit as far as the SEO page is concerned as I would be limited in design, etc.  Does that make sense?

Thanks for your interest and response.

Rob