Index Bloat: Canonicalize, Redirect or Delete URLs?

[AJTSEO]

I was doing some simple on-page recommendations for a client and realized that they have a bit of a website bloat problem. They are an ecommerce shoe store and for one product, there could be 10+ URLs. For example, this is what ONE product looks like:

example.com/products/shoename-color1

example.com/products/shoename-color2

example.com/collections/style/products/shoename-color1

example.com/collections/style/products/shoename-color2

example.com/collections/adifferentstyle/products/shoename-color1

example.com/collections/adifferentstyle/products/shoename-color2

example.com/collections/shop-latest-styles/products/shoename-color1

example.com/collections/shop-latest-styles/products/shoename-color2

example.com/collections/all/products/shoename-color1

example.com/collections/all/products/shoename-color2

...and so on... all for the same shoe. They have about 20-30 shoes altogether, and some come in 4-5 colors. This has caused some major bloat on their site and I assume some confusion for the search engine. That said, I'm trying to figure out what the best way to tackle this is from an SEO perspective.

Here's where I've gotten to so far:

Is it better to canonicalize all URLs, referencing back to one "main" one, delete all bloat pages re-link everything to the main one(s), or 301 redirect the bloat URLs back to the "main" one(s)?

Or is there another option that I haven't considered?

Thanks!

[GastonRiera]

Hi there,

This is exactly the case where Google recommends to use canonical, on this resource page: Consolidate duplicate URLs - google Search Console Help.

Keep in mind that canonicals are efficient when different URLs have the same content.
I'd avoid redirections because that would be hurt user experiences when navigating the website, and we know that hurting UX upsets Google.

Hope it helps
Best luck.
Gaston