[5][6] In February 2009, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced support for the canonical link element, which can be inserted into the
section of a web page, to allow webmasters to prevent these issues.[7] The canonical link element helps webmasters make clear to the search engines which page should be credited as the original.
"[8] According to Google, the canonical link element is not considered to be a directive, but rather a hint that the ranking algorithm will "honor strongly".
[1][9] While the canonical link element has its benefits, Matt Cutts, then the head of Google's webspam team, has said that the search engine prefers the use of 301 redirects.
Cutts said the preference for redirects is because Google's spiders can choose to ignore a canonical link element if they deem it more beneficial to do so.