Canonical tag vs 301 redirect

[justpassing]

Hi

When changing the URLs structure of a site (which I know is something to be avoided) what is best ?

1- redirect old URLs to new ones with a 301 code

or

2- serve the same content under the two URLs and using a canonical tag pointing to the new one?

Will (1) cause a delay in the re-indexing / re-ranking of the content ?

Regards,

[phranque]

redirect old urls with a 301 status code and a Location header

[keyplyr]

Agreed, use a 301 to new page.

The cannocal tag may be one of the most misunderstood/misused directives.

5 common mistakes with rel=canonical [webmasters.googleblog.com]

[cr1m]

I'd also go with 301, as you said yourself you're changing the URL structure, and there's no point in keeping both structure active - which would also be wasteful in relation to Google's crawling resources.

[justpassing]

Thank you all.