Canonicals question ref canonicals pointing to redundant urls

[AndyMacLean]

Hi,

SCENARIO:

A site has say 3 examples of the same product page but with different urls because that product fits into 3 different categories e.g.

/tools/hammer

/handtools/hammer

/specialoffers/hammer

and lets say the first 2 of those have the canonical pointing to /specialoffers/hammer YET that page is now redundant e.g. the webmaster decided to do away with the /specialoffers/ folder.

ASSUMPTIONS:

• That is going to seriously hamper the chances of the 2 remaining versions of the hammer page being able to rank as they have canonicals pointing to a url that no longer exists.
• The canonical tags should be changed to point to 1 of the remaining url versions.

As an added complication - lets say /specialoffers/hammer still exists, the url works, but just isn't navigable from the site.

Thoughts/feedback welcome!

[RyanPurkey]

Right. I'd avoid using a temproary section (special offers) as a canonical in any case. It'd be better to have a temporary design element on the other hammer pages that indicate it's on sale or tag it through the shopping art so that the special offer is applied. In general, canonical should point to the page that is least likely to change and most likely to rank for the targeted search.  Cheers!

[BradyDCallahan]

Just to add to Ryan's already stellar answer, the temporary page should actually (probably; not privy to all details of your situation) have a canonical tag referencing one of the other more permanent pages with similar content.

[AndyMacLean]

Thanks. BTW in my original question I used the word spanner a couple times when I meant hammer which probably confused some people. I've edited it. I prefer hammers anyway