Redirect or canonical?
I have 1000+ duplicate pages, e.g., www.mydomain.com/category/subcategory/page-example and www.mydomain.com/page-example. What would be better to set canonical or do 301 redirect? I'm not sure if too many canonicalized pages will not seem strange to Google. Let me know the best approach, please.
Declaring the duplicate pages canonical will be regarded as the best. Too many redirects are harmful to the SEO.
In the case of described issue it will be good practice to declare canonical tag. Avoid 301 redirect because it may put unnecessary load on the server and reduce speed. Try to reduce direct redirects by using rules. Canonical tags use simple and consistent syntax, and are placed within the section of a web page:
For Example
Well, I think one redirect is fine, while 2+ could be harmful.
Anyway, I'd make sure that the new content is not being published on the old style URL, redirect all existing ones (already indexed) and from now on, only have one piece of content accessible on single URL.
301 redirect doesn't have to be resource expensive, as you can redirect visitor on webserver level.
Yes, creating canonical is advised because doing too many redirects might harm your SEO and potentially lower the domain authority (DA) of your website.
