Adding URL slugs to the URLs in my sitemap causes duplicate content and Google still indexs the old URL

Adding URL slugs to the URLs in my sitemap causes duplicate content and Google still indexs the old URL - Google Search Console is a free application that allows you to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve any issues that Google may encounter as it crawls and attempts to index your website in search results. If you’re not the most technical person in the world, some of the errors you’re likely to encounter there may leave you scratching your head. We wanted to make it a bit easier, so we put together this handy set of tips about seo, google, google-search-console, google-search to guide you along the way. Read the discuss below, we share some tips to fix the issue about Adding URL slugs to the URLs in my sitemap causes duplicate content and Google still indexs the old URL.Problem :

I have submitted several pages to Google through Google Webmaster Tools by using a sitemap in XML format. Several pages are indexed by Google as well but the rank of those pages are in 400-500 as my link is like this:

http://example.com/test/music/view/1333

I have noticed Google is giving more importance to pages whose link consists of those title something like this:

http://example.com/test/music/view/1333/summer_of_69_music

So if Google finds the title or search query in the link it gives more importance to those links so i have again generated my sitemap with title in all links and submitted to Google but as all links are already indexed and revised sitemap consists of same title Google is not considering new sitemap for indexing.please tell shall i delete my old sitemap as in that title is not there and my rank is coming very poor but if Google index my new sitemap i hope to get more search traffic.

I think Google will not index duplicate pages from same website so i don't have other option than deleting old site. Please advise.

Solution :

Google does not like duplicate content as you know. So what you have to tell them is that it is the same content and which is the URL you want for it.

This is done with canonical metadata or see my answer here for the syntax. The sitemap, as you did, should reference the content via the canonical link, plus the canonical address should be in the code for every page.

If the issue about seo, google, google-search-console, google-search is resolved, there’s a good chance that your content will get indexed and you’ll start to show up in Google search results. This means a greater chance to drive organic search traffic to your site.