Duplicate product urls

[thappe]

Our site automatically creates shorter urls for the products. There is a rel canonical tag in place, but webmaster tools shows these urls have duplicate title tags. Here is an example: http://www.colemanfurniture.com/holden-desk.htm http://www.colemanfurniture.com/writing-desks-secretary-desks/holden-desk.htm Should the longer url be redirected to the shorter one?

[AlanBleiweiss]

When I went to the longer version URL just now, it took me to your "404 not found" page.

If the URL you want to use is the short version, then the long version should have a 301 redirect implemented pointing to the short version.

[mattbeswick]

Are the longer links historical or are they being pointed to from somewhere on your site?

If it's the latter I'd advise sorting out your internal linking structure so that it's the shorter URL that is pointed to. A canonical should be enough, but it's only a pointer... so if Google sees loads of links going to a page that is canonicalised which, in turn, points to a page with virtually no juice then it may be that the tag is ignored.

It's also worth finding out if it's just webmaster tools showing the error by checking if both pages are indexed. If they are, you definitely have a duplicate content issue... if not then it may just be a reporting error.

• Matt

[mattbeswick]

Alan - I did exactly the same thing... it was the wrong URL in the original post:

http://www.colemanfurniture.com/office-furniture/writing-desks-secretary-desks/holden-desk.htm

-Matt

[AlanBleiweiss]

Thanks Matt.

[AlanBleiweiss]

And to add to Matt's reply, not all search engines recognize canonical tags, so if it is a dupe content issue, then 301s are vital.