Canonical URL, cornerstone page and categories

[stephanwb]

If I want to have a cornerstone "page", can I substitute an actual page with a category archive of posts "page" (that contains many posts containing the target key phrase)? This way, if I make blog posts about a certain topic/ key phrase (example "beach weddings") and add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts, am I right then to assume google will see the archive page as the cornerstone page (and thereby won't see the individual posts with the same key phrase as competing)?

[redfishking]

A canonical tag is used to signify that a page has the same or extremely similar content to another page. Here I don't know if that is the case, because the cornerstone page would have much more content than the individual post pages.

This is what Google says about the canonical tag:

"Must the content on a set of pages be similar to the content on the canonical version?

Yes. The rel="canonical" attribute should be used only to specify the preferred version of many pages with identical content (although minor differences, such as sort order, are okay)."

[CleverPhD]

Just to add to redfishkings point - You can only canonical one page to another page.  You mention using a canonical link from a "category archive page to the individual posts" that will not work.

[redfishking]

That's what I thought they were saying at first, but if you read this line again, "... add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts..." they mean to add the tag to the posts, not the main page.

[CleverPhD]

Thanks RFK.

I would not use the canonical in this way for two reasons.

1. It is the improper use of the canonical link.  Google may ignore the canonical directive when it is used improperly and actually gives a similar example on the webmaster blog of this being an incorrect use

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html

"Remember that the canonical designation also implies the preferred display URL. Avoid adding a rel=canonical from a category or landing page to a featured article."

2. If you were to use the canonical in this way and Google follows it, you are eliminating all of your blog posts from the index.  This would result in lost traffic from long tail searches and ultimately less traffic to your site.

[stephanwb]

Thank you everybody for the assistance. I really appreciate it. Along with your help and another resource I talked to, this is what I'm going to do.

It's now clear that I better rely on breadcrumbs and a category link on these pages. So I'll keep it simple, use the category page and I'll add introductory content to that page. I'll try this for  two months, see how Google handles this and decide whether this works better or not.

Thanks again, everyone!