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Tried and tested.

If your authoring original content your not abusing the tag.

If your authoring the content using a well put together Google plus profile the benefits are much like authoring an article. Wonderful.

I'm yet to see if the subject mater of this article will also effect internal linking.

Thanks for the reply.

I would agree for usability the category/product options is better, but could be tackled using breadcrumbs?

Is using canonical when category produces duplicate content not just a lazy alternative to 301's?

Shouldn't 301 redirects be used when a product appears in more than one category?

Would having home/product with canonical and 301's from /category/product not be the best option?

Have you ran this through Linkscape?

Will give you a good idea of the issue.

My guess would be simple brand based anchor text or website address links from authorities.

Try local directories, industry directories and stuff like dmoz. Entering competitions is also a good way to get brand based exposure.

Good luck.