Content migration is one of the last tasks that TG would like to do. It literally involves acquiring a new domain name, a new host company and moving contents to a new site with limited support from host companies. Almost three quarters of the task are done manually.

Two of the big worries are losing traffic from search engines and diluting link popularity as a result of duplicate content. TG has to keep identical content on the old and new site while all the new content would only be updated in the new site.

In the latest update from Google webmaster blog, the search giant offers a new solution to resolve the duplicate content by using a canonical tag link.

We now support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that’s accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version. Google webmaster blog.

By adding a <link> tag to specify a preferred version inside the <head> section of the duplicate content URLs, Google would track down the duplicates and refer them to the canonical URL. Additional URL properties such as, PageRank ad related signals are transferred as well, Google webmaster blog said. 

After inserting the following link, it will be adopted by any search engine when crawling and indexing the page.  

 <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

 

Canonical Tag

 

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