What's the best way to solve this sites duplicate content issues?

[paulmalin]

Hi,

The site is www.expressgolf.co.uk and is an e-commerce website with lots of categories and brands.

I'm trying to achieve one single unique URL for each category / brand page to avoid duplicate content and to get the correct URL's indexed.

Currently it looks like this...

Main URL

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green

Different Versions

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1/

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2/

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3/

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4/

http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all/

Firstly, what is the best course of action to make all versions point to the main URL and keep them from being indexed - Canonical Tag, NOINDEX  or block them in robots?

Secondly, do I just need to 301 the (/) from all URL's to the non (/) URL's ?

I'm sure this question has been answered but I was having trouble coming to a solution for this one site.

Cheers,

Paul

[Jinx14678]

Hi,

I would say canonical or rel=”next” and rel=”prev”

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

Would probably be your best bets, as a 301 would solve from a Search Engine perspective, but definitely not good for users wanting to see different versions of the product in question.

hope this helps

w00t!

[MarieHaynes]

It really sounds like canonical is what you need here.  Here is Matt Cutts explaining:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM

[FrontlineMobility]

Greetings Champion!

Cannonical Linking is the best way to go!

For your conundrum in Example B with the Calvin Green I would find out which URL version is dominant or has the most link juice and structure the redirects to that links. For instance, let us say [http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/] is the dominant link I would have the copy urls pointing back to that one like so

I manage an Ecommerce Site as well, I had the same issue with the categories and what I basically did the same thing for each level of my site, categories that have the url ending in /1, /2, /3 and so on I would redirect to the first page to make that Url stronger.

Practically think about what Noindexing or Nofollowing would do, you would lose so much link power that you could harness, With redirects you can focus this power in a more effective manner.

Also I was snooping and clicked Golf Clubs which took me to this URL

expressgolf.co .uk/shop/clubs

Made me realize that you had "clubs" at the end, I would put Golf Clubs because when you do a keyword search for Clubs, Bars come up. Putting a Keyword in the URL can greatly enhance that URL. Just a tip if you want to utilize it or not friend ^.^.

Good luck on your quest for Page 1!

Justin Smith