1
When you see subdirectories on top of subdirectories that do not exist, it's most likely a miscoded relative URL that a bot is hitting.
I would check your site and update to absolute URLs, as they can remedy this problem AND it can help from your entire site being scraped and duplicated at a different domain.
1
If your developer is using a 301 Redirect then this is the best practice.
Google guideline (and I guess guideline from other search engines) is simple on this matter. When you are moving a URL and want to maintain its SEO value implement a 301 Redirect when the change is permanent.
Source
1
You're not applying the canonical link to the directory, but on the page that is served when someone visits that URI. Canonical links are specific to individual pages, so applying one to the directory's index would have no impact on other pages within it.
1
Check your .htaccess for the redirections. I suppose it is an internal redirection made by WordPress.
You can try this in the .htaccess.
Make sure to have mod_rewrite activated in your server.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com$
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://www.example.com/$1 [QSA,L,R=301]
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