I've read the Google how-to here: support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394 If i have TWO versions of a page: 1) example.com/page1 2) example.com/page1-sort=highest and let's say that #1 is the one I want to designate as the preferred (aka canonical) version, my understanding is that in the <head> section of #2, I need to put: <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/page1"/> First off is that correct? But more importantly,is it OK if that line exists on BOTH versions of the page (the canonical one AND the non-canonical one)? The Google how-to link above suggests that it ONLY needs to exist on the page that you're telling the search engine is NOT the preferred one...but I wasn't totally clear on that. That's the way I've got it set up (link exists in BOTH head sections), and just want to make sure that it's not sub-optimal.
To start with, that's not the use of canonicalization. If your website is index on this two version: http://www.yoursite.com http://yoursite.com Google will consider this as duplicate, so the solution is to use canonicalization which is the rel=canonical. You can choose on the two version. You can make it <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com"/> or <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com"/>. For your problem: If i have TWO versions of a page: 1) example.com/page1 2) example.com/page1-sort=highest Anyway, that's not a problem at all, it's just you sort your items/data/articles or whatever according to its number. NO NEED TO EDIT OR CHANGE ANYTHING.
I actually don't think you're correct about that. You seem to think that the only use of rel=canonicalization is for www vs. non-www issues...but that's not really true. Read that Google link in my OP or do some google searching about this issue. Having 2 different URLs for the same content is exactly what the canonicalization tag is for...if the same content exists at mysite.com/page1 and mysite.com/page1b, then you need to use the canonicalization tag to tell search engines which is the PREFERRED version, otherwise you'll suffer from duplicate content problems. So all I'm asking is if it's proper / OK to have that line of code on BOTH the preferred and the non-preferred pages... (I think...)
I suggest you to go for video tutorial or you can download and use the pdf best practices for the same.