I have a website with multiple URLs to the same content:
/dog/black/labrador
/dog/brown/labrador
... whereas the /black/
or /brown/
hierarchy can be anything and will always show the same page and the same content.
The canonical URL set is http://example.com/dog/black/labrador
for all subpages pages. I assume this will also be the URL displayed in the SERPs.
What happens to my page ranking if I manually change the canonical URL to be http://example.com/dog/big/labrador
instead? (to have a better keyword and/or a more accurate word for my users)
Of course /dog/black/labrador
(the old canonical URL) will continue to display the same content and there will still be only one canonical URL (the new one).
But will I keep all SEO juice or will i be penalised for not using 301 redirect on this case? And will the indexed URL on search results will be updated?