Canonical tag vs 301

[seoug_2005]

What is the reason that 301 is preferred and not rel canonical tag when it comes to implementing redirect. Page rank will be lost in both cases. So, why prefer one over the other ?

[ReneReinholdt]

The quick response to this, is that with 301 your fairly sure that all bots (not only google/Bing) will understand and apart from that it's way easier to manage the 301's then it is to manage rel's. Both should work without a problem but there are allot of pitfalls with rel's fore instance it's possible  to make an infinite loop with rel's.

[activitysuper]

301 is a redirect so if you change the url you 301 redirect it to the new url in case links have been built to the old url.

rel canonical is a tag that tells Google this page has similar content to another page to help duplicate content issues, usually used on re-ordering functionality and paging.

[seoug_2005]

Thanks. Will you please elaborate how it's possible  to make an infinite loop with rel's.

[ReneReinholdt]

page 1 points to page 2 that points back to page 1.. this or simular situations will make fubar for Google

you can actualy do the same with 301's but it's wayyyy easier to notice.. the rel is allot harder to notice if you do something wrong since it only affects google/bing