Technical SEO FAQ · Indexing, Canonicalization & Duplicate Content
When should a page be canonicalized instead of noindexed?
Use canonicalization when multiple URLs represent essentially the same content and you want one representative URL.
Use noindex when a URL should not be in the index, even though it may still be useful for users or internal workflows.
Example:
/product/shoe
/product/shoe?utm_source=email
may be consolidated to the clean product URL.
But an internal search result page might simply be excluded from indexing.
Do not use canonical as a generic substitute for noindex; they communicate different intentions.
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