Custom URLs and SEO - Duplicate content?

[kwanzz]

I haven't been able to find any documentation about the new custom url feature in 7.0.6 and I'm not sure how Able treats the original url. Most of my products are already indexed by the search engines. If I manually add a custom url to each of my products would both the original url and the new custom url point to the product page potentially creating a "duplicate content" issue? Ideally when a new custom url is added to a product Able would automatically add a 301 redirect to the old url. Does anyone have any input on how/whether this is implemented? If I shouldn't be concerned about this,let me know why. Thanks!

[seanhoward]

I am playing with the new SEO features, and I have some input on your question. While it would be ideal that a redirect would be automatically established when a custom url is entered, this is not what actually happens. My opinion is that with a proper 301 redirect, you shouldn't be worried about duplicate content. However, without the redirects, you're likely to have spiders running into 404 errors.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I think it's a good suggestion - when changing the custom URL value of some catalog object we should offer you the option to automatically set up the 301 redirect from the old URL. Right now, you have to manually add this.