The question as to when to use a 301 permanent redirect vs. using a “rel=canonical” attribute comes up often. I had a bunch of information I was prepared to blog about when I ran across this great article over at Search Engine Watch:

How and When to Use 301 Redirects vs. Canonical

It’s a great post that covers the various scenarios as to when it’s ok to use a 301, and when it’s appropriate to use the canonical method.

We also have a blog post that covers when not to use a 301 redirect. Between these two posts, you should get a clearer picture of how best to redirect search engines and human beings on your site.

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Using these tools effectively can not only improve the user experience on your site, but help search engines like Google make the correct decision about your rankings when pages change on your site.