Q: 'Each color of a product has its own URL. Are we creating duplicate content?'

Q: 'Each color of a product has its own URL. Are we creating duplicate content?'

Short answer: Yes, and canonicalizing to the master variant usually consolidates rankings fast.

The longer version: An apparel brand had every color as a separate indexable URL — 8 colors meant 8 near-identical pages competing with each other. Classic cannibalization: rankings bounced between variants week to week. They set the canonical on all color URLs to point at the 'default' product page (the one with the most reviews and traffic) while keeping color pages crawlable for users. Within five weeks, the consolidated page jumped from average position 11 to 6 for the head term, and ranking volatility flattened out. Total reviews now aggregated onto one page also bumped the star count.

Rule of thumb: One product, one canonical. Color/size variants point to the master unless each variant has genuinely unique demand.

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