guys. I'm considering a complete overhaul of my site, and I have a dilemma. I have multiple ways of getting to the same place, i.e.:
Home > Page 1 > Page 2 > Page 3
and
Home > Page 3
and possibly even
Home > Some Page > Page 3
It makes sense to do it this way logically (because of my categories), but what should I do about the pages? Of course, I don't want have duplicate content and get smacked by Google, but I don't want to the user to lose their place in the hierarchy/breadcrumbs.
Is this a good time to use the rel="canonical"
tag? The only difference on the three pages would be the breadcrumbs or menus, depending upon how the user navigates to the page. I may do the rebuild in CodeIgniter, in which case I could use routes. Would that be the best option, here? I just don't want to confuse users, get smacked by Google, sacrifice usability, etc.
Thanks, guys!