Duplicate content issue. Delete index.html and replace with www.?
-
I have a duplicate content issue. On my site the home button goes to the index.html and not the www. If I change it to the www will it impact my SERPS? I don't think anyone links to the index.html.
-
When you say "delete", do you mean delete it from the home button (and just use the root version), or delete the page? Keep in mind that the "index.html" page also drives the root version of the site ("www.example.com/"), so you definitely don't want to delete that file.
Whether you use 301-redirects or canonical tags (either should be ok, but it sounds like the canonical tag would be easier for you to implement), it is important to use a consistent path. So, you do need to change the button link to match the canonical version of the URL. Don't do this until after you've got either the 301 or canonical tag in place.
-
Remember, if you put this in the PHP code, it has to be conditional - you don't want to redirect your canonical version unnecessarily. Since your home-page is just one template, you'd be firing a 301 for every situation.
-
Well the canonical will be different for every page...so if your page is:
www.jeremygower.com/contact/index.php
your canonical would be:
Basically, what that says is..."hey google, it doesn't matter what URL you think you're at, make sure that the only one in your search engine is the one in the canonical tag"...therefore, be very careful with it as well. If you simply put www.jeremygower.com as the canonical for every page, google would de-index every other page of your site.
Anywhere in the head is good.
IMO, unlimited ends up being a bad thing...the way those things work is that godaddy (or whoever) puts a ton of websites on the same server, so think about the 500 or so other sites with 'unlimited' bandwidth using your server. It makes it slow...for instance there's about 400 domains on the same server as my domain, and yes, it's slow a lot of the time...the cheap plan on a small orange I'm sure is similar but I'd expect better quality than godaddy. (they dont have unlimited)
-
I use dream weaver as my HTML editor, I templated out my site so I wonder if I can just put the code at the top of the template and have it update every page on my site. Now where in the head do I put the code? At the very beginning? Also I know yahoo, godaddy and others promote unlimited bandwidth and storage while others have a tiered plan. Isn't it better to have unlimited? I'm just asking since there is an up charge if you go over the bandwidth or storage on the other hosting plans. Thank you for your help.
-
header ('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
header ('Location: http://www.whatever.com/whatever.php');
-------- As far as I know there's no difference...to Google a 301 is a 301 no matter where you tell it. Would still be a pain in the butt, though - and I'm not sure 100% efficient....the best thing (i think) would be to have a canonical on every single page, then that will take care of it from the search engine standpoint. However, I'd still go somewhere that allows rewrites...that's just crazy. Even my godaddy shared hosting allows htaccess. Dont go to Godaddy shared hosting - it's awful. Not sure where to get cheap hosting with htaccess, but I'd venture to say that most hosts support it. I'd look into a small orange, it's offered as a pro perk through SEOmoz for 3 months at half price and it looks like they offer $20/mo plans for business - or if you wanna try it $35/yr plan as well. From my experience, as long as you do it correctly, changing hosts will not affect your SERPs. We actually moved in January and saw nothing change.
-
Also is using a php code a real 301 redirect or no? Do you have a sample php code that I could use? I'm still in learning mode.
-
Which hosting company do you prefer? Which one is best for seo purposes? And how do I transfer without impacting my SERPS or does it have no impact?
-
Well, 301 would be best...but I suppose in that situation what I'd do is use the canonical tags...but that's a pain as you'd need to do it for like every page...
In short, that's just whack...I'd find a new host.
Edit: P.S. Why can't yahoo just die already?
-
I should put the code in the head right? Thank you.
-
Thank you, I am trying to figure out how to do the 301 redirect but when i asked yahoo they say that the php code is not a real 301 redirect when I asked them. And they only do the 301 redirect on the ecommerce hosting plans which I have no need for. Any insight? Thanks for your answer.
-
Just to follow up on this. the meta tag for this is
-
You should have a 301 redirect setup so that everything goes to one address, ie. www.jeremygower.com....so that no matter if they type index.html or www.jeremygower.com/ or jeremygower.com it all goes to the same place. Other than that, an easier method (and you should probably do both...just put a canonical tag on that page, then no matter what the main page will get the link juice.
And yes, it probably will - either way, you should fix it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Alternatives 301? Issues redirection of index.html page with Adobe Business Catalyst
Hi Moz community, As for now we have two different versions of a client's homepage that’s dividing our traffic. One of the urls is the index.html version of the other url. We are using Adobe Business Catalyst for one of our clients and they told us they can’t 301 redirect. Adobe Business Catalyst does 301 redirects, but not to itself like an .htaccess rewrite. Doing a 301 redirect using BC from index.html to / creates an infinite loop and break the page. Are there alternatives to a 301 or any suggestions how to solve this? Thanks for all your answers and thoughts in advance,
Technical SEO | | Anna_Hoesl
Anna0 -
Duplicate content
Hello mozzers, I have an unusual question. I've created a page that I am fully aware that it is near 100% duplicate content. It quotes the law, so it's not changeable. The page is very linkable in my niche. Is there a way I can build quality links to it that benefit my overall websites DA (i'm not bothered about the linkable page being ranked) without risking panda/dupe content issues? Thanks, Peter
Technical SEO | | peterm21 -
Handling of Duplicate Content
I just recently signed and joined the moz.com system. During the initial report for our web site it shows we have lots of duplicate content. The web site is real estate based and we are loading IDX listings from other brokerages into our site. If though these listings look alike, they are not. Each has their own photos, description and addresses. So why are they appear as duplicates – I would assume that they are all too closely related. Lots for Sale primarily – and it looks like lazy agents have 4 or 5 lots and input the description the same. Unfortunately for us, part of the IDX agreement is that you cannot pick and choose which listings to load and you cannot change the content. You are either all in or you cannot use the system. How should one manage duplicate content like this? Or should we ignore it? Out of 1500+ listings on our web site it shows 40 of them are duplicates.
Technical SEO | | TIM_DOTCOM0 -
Responsive Code Creating Duplicate Content Issue
Good morning, Our developers have recently created a new site for our agency. The site is responsive for mobile/tablets. I've just put the site through Screaming Frog and I've been informed of duplicate H2s. When I've looked at some of the page sources, there are some instances of duplicated H2s and duplicated content. These duplicates don't actually appear on the site, only in the code. When I asked the development guys about this, they advised this is duplicated because of the code for the responsive site. Will the site be negatively affected because of this? Not everything is duplicated, which leads me to believe it probably could have been designed better... but I'm no developer so don't know for sure. I've checked the code for other responsive sites and no duplicates can be found. Thanks in advance, Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Duplicate Content Due to Pagination
Recently our newly designed website has been suffering from a rankings loss. While I am sure there are a number of factors involved, I'd like to no if this scenario could be harmful... Google is showing a number of duplicate content issues within Webmaster Tools. Some of what I am seeing is duplicate Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions for page 1 and page 2 of some of my product category pages. So if a category has many products and has 4 pages, it is effectively showing the same page title and meta desc. across all 4 pages. I am wondering if I should let my site show, say 150 products per page to get them all on one page instead of the current 36 per page. I use the Big Commerce platform. Thank you for taking the time to read my question!
Technical SEO | | josh3300 -
Tips and duplicate content
Hello, we have a search site that offers tips to help with search/find. These tips are organized on the site in xml format with commas... of course the search parameters are duplicated in the xml so that we have a number of tips for each search parameter. For example if the parameter is "dining room" we might have 35 pieces of advice - all less than a tweet long. My question - will I be penalized for keyword stuffing - how can I avoid this?
Technical SEO | | acraigi0 -
How to avoid duplicate content penalty when our content is posted on other sites too ?
For recruitment company sites, their job ads are posted muliple times on thier own sites and even on other sites too. These are the same ads (job description is same) posted on diff. sites. How do we avoid duplicate content penalty in this case?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
E-Commerce Duplicate Content
Hello all We have an e-commerce website with approximately 3,000 products. Many of the products are displayed in multiple categories which in turn generates a different URL! 😞 Accross the entire site I have noticed that the product pages are always outranked by competitors who have lower page authority, domain authority, total links etc etc. I am convinced this is down to duplicate content issues. I understand there is no direct penalty but how would this affect our rankings? Is page rank split between all the duplicates, which in turn lowers it's ranking potential? I have looked for a way to identify duplicate content using Google analytics but i've been unsuccessful. If the duplicate content is the issue and page rank is divided am i best using canonical or 301 redirects? Sorry if this is an obvious question but If i'm correct we could see a huge improvement in rankings accross the board. Wow! Cheers Todd
Technical SEO | | toddyC0