Canonical Advice - ?

[yogitrout1]

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of problem with duplicate content on a newly launched site and looking for some advice on which pages to canonicalize.  Our legacy site had product "information" pages that now 301 to new product information pages.  The reason for the legacy having these pages (instead of pages where you can purchase) is because we used our vendors  "cart link", which was an iframe inside the website. So in order to get ranked for these products, we created these pages, that had links to the frame where they could buy.  The strategy worked, and we got ranked for our products.

Now with the new site, we have those same product information pages, but when you click the link to buy, it goes to a page which now is on our actual site, where you can make the purchase, but this page contains the same basic information, though it looks very different.

So my question ---  the product "information" pages, are the new 301 homes and are the pages with the rank.  The purchase pages are new and have no rank, but are essentially duplicate content.    Should I put the canonical link element on the purchase page and tell Google to regard the information pages since those are ranked?   It just seems weird to me to direct Google away from the place where people can purchase, however, the purchase pages aren't nearly as "pretty" as the information pages are, and wouldn't be the greatest landing pages.  We have an automotive site, and the purchase page you have to enter vehicle information.  The information page is nicer, and if the visitor is interested, its just one click to get to that page to buy.

What to do here?  I am fairly new to Moz, and I couldn't determine whether I am permitted to include an example link from our site of what I am referring to.  Is that permitted?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
Kristin

[AndrewClark]

Hi Kristin,

If the information on your purchase page and information page is identical then I would question why there is a need to keep them both as physical pages? My advice would be to 301 the new information pages and the old information pages directly to the new purchase pages - this will consolidate all your authority in once place and promote the page which is most beneficial to your company.

However, once this is done I would look to improve the visual aspect of these purchasing pages and see if you can improve the purchasing pages and make them more aesthetically pleasing so that you no longer have a "better landing page" situation like you do at the moment.

The above method require some time and work to be invested - if this is not viable at the moment then I would be inclined to suggest a canonical on the new information pages to the new purchasing pages (rel="canonical" src="new purchasing page").

All the information above is subject to the information being duplicated which I believe to be right. If you have any further questions I'll be happy to help.

[trung.ngo]

Hi Kristin,

If there are technical constraints and you cannot merge the pages, as recommended by Andrew above, then adding a canonical tag to your existing purchase pages, referring back to the product information pages would be my suggestion.

Though it seems a little strange to take focus away from the purchase pages, the reality is that the information pages are more useful for users--and therefore, that's the page that Google would prefer in its index.

In future iterations of your site, I'd strongly recommend doing what Andrew alluded to, which is create a single page, with both product information and purchasing features, and 301 redirect the other variations to the new version.

-Trung

[yogitrout1]

thanks guys.  Very helpful