Canonical URLs

[walrus]

I have a question hopefully you can help me out with.

I am doing the SEO for a new site that is in development. Some of the pages are individuals profiles pages with unique URLs. The majority of the content on these pages will remain the same but for a small number of these pages some of the content will change over time - and this will have an affect on the url - so the content of the URL will also have to change.

My question is....if we use canonical urls will the page rank be affected?

 

[gbonnet]

If the URL will change, then you'd better use 'Canonical' urls.

My main worry would be the duplicate content with it's dilution effect, rather than the pagerank.

 

[waynewex]

Yes, you should probably use canonical urls. Google blog talks about it. I'd give you a link but the system won't allow me until I've made 10 posts.

 

[ndrewstrauss]

Yes, you can use canonical urls.
You should care about Canonical URLs when you have a page on your site that is reached through multiple URLs due to tracking parameters.