Wrong page in serps

[niclaus78]

Hi 
I've been working with a law firm's website for a couple of years and we've encounter a problem.

The pages were divided to target employers and employees separately.

For the very targeted keywords mentioning either employees or employers everything was good but for broader less targeted keywords e.g unfair dismissal keywords chooses either one or the other which is a problem.

Now I created this ''bridge'' pages where all the topics are explained and then users are directed to and then they will chose where to go.

the problem is a lot of off page was created during this years either targeting on or the other.

What I plan to do is:

-Create a new site map and changing the priority, so the new pages will have a priority 1 and the others less.

- bookmarks, articles, etc will be targeting now to the new pages.

• I place the new pages linked from the home page so that they get the link juice of the home page and they are also now more a category page in the map, so a level up comparing to the previous ones.

Questions:

1- Is it worthwhile adding a rel canonical tag to the new pages and rel alternate to previous pages, or if its not a question of duplicate content it shouldn't have an impact?

What other things should I take into consideration?

Thanks a lot.

nico

[SEOAndy]

Hi Nico,

before i answer your question, its probably worth noting that if you manipulate your sitemap priorties too much they will be ignored - and should this "over optimisation" penalty occur you will be hit.

it also sounds like you are trying to manipulate "link juice" within the site, usually doing this is a bad idea - my advice is think of the user and not the search engine, even if it worked and you got visitors to your site if they can't find their way around you are in trouble.

your question

Rel canonical only effects duplicate content between your own pages and other sites - implement it if you want it wont have much effect. I think you've got rel=alternative mixed up, it is used to point to things like RSS feeds or copies for PDFs, not previous pages / content.