Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Splitting Page Authority with two URLs for the same page.
-
Hello guys,
My website is currently holding two different URLs for the same page and I am under the impression such set up is dividing my Page Authority and Link Juice.
We currently have the following page with both URLs below:
www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/home.aspx
www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/Analysing the page authority and backlinks I identified that we are splitting the amount of backlinks (links from sites, social media and therefore authority).
"/home.aspx"
PA: 67
Linking Root Domains: 52
Total Links: 272"/"
PA: 64
Linking Root Domains: 29
Total Links: 128I am under the impression that if the URLs were the same we would maximise our backlinks and therefore page authority.
My Question: How can I fix this? Should I have a 301 redirect from the page "/" to the "/home.aspx" therefore passing the authority and link juice of “/” directly to “/homes.aspx”?
Trying to gather thoughts and ideas on this, suggestions are much appreciated?
Thanks!
-
Great help.
Thanks both!
-
Hi Joao, yes a 301 redirect would be preferable to a canonical. A 301 is more "absolute" - it lets search engines know that they should ignore the redirected page. A canonical is more like a piece of advice for search engines.
Canonicals are useful if you don't have the development skills or resources to implement a 301, and they can also be used when it's not practical to add a 301 to lots of web pages.
In short - use a 301 if practical
-
I think it generally depends on the cause of the duplicate. If its system issue then you'll forever be creating 301s for your urls. In that case its best to avoid having to do the 301 and stick with canonical. With canonical are telling the search engine to only index one version of the url.
Both 301 and canonical have their uses but the choice should depend on the issue and what you are trying to achieve. Hope this helps?
Duke
-
Hi Duke and Alice,
Thank you for your both replies. Very helpful.
We currently do a rel="canonical" from the page "/" to the "/home.aspx", which should avoid the content duplication issue.
I have seen mix opinions on where to use rel="canonical" vs 301 redirect. Just found a Matt Cutts' video about that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW5UL3lzBOA)
Alice - I take that it might be better to do a 301 redirect than a rel="canonical", as per the video. What do think? should I leave the rel-canonical or try to move to a 301?
Cheers guys!
-
Hi Joao, some good advice from Duke here. A 301 redirect will solve this duplicate problem and help to consolidate the authority. However it's worth investigating to see what caused the problem and whether it is a wider issue, in which case canonicals might be more appropriate. Good luck!
-
Hi Joao,
I think you probably need to establish if the those two urls came about due to a cms or system issue. I ask this because some cms system create duplicate/different urls for the same page and the good ones have a canonical set up to avoid duplicate content. If it is a system or cms issue then get a canonical set up. Use screeming frog to run a crawl to see if i picks up any duplicate urls. Currently, your homepage runs the risk of duplicate content penalty.
If its not a system wide issue, then set up a 301 redirect. Think of the home page that people will remember easily and can share on social media platforms without part of it being cut of due to length.
All the best
Duke
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
-
Does a no-indexed parent page impact its child pages?
If I have a page* in WordPress that is set as private and is no-indexed with Yoast, will that negatively affect the visibility of other pages that are set as children of that first page? *The context is that I want to organize some of the pages on a business's WordPress site into silos/directories. For example, if the business was a home remodeling company, it'd be convenient to keep all the pages about bathrooms, kitchens, additions, basements, etc. bundled together under a "services" parent page (/services/kitchens/, /services/bathrooms/, etc.). The thing is that the child pages will all be directly accessible from the menus, so there doesn't need to be anything on the parent /services/ page itself. Another such parent page/directory/category might be used to keep different photo gallery pages together (/galleries/kitchen-photos/, /galleries/bathroom-photos/, etc.). So again, would it be safe for pages like /services/kitchens/ and /galleries/addition-photos/ if the /services/ and /galleries/ pages (but not /galleries/* or anything like that) are no-indexed? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BrianAlpert781 -
Best way to change URL for already ranking pages
Hello. I have a lot of pages that I'm optimising. The ones I'm focusing on right now is already ranking, but the URLs could be better (they don't include the keywords right now). However I'm worried that if I change the URLs they will drop in rankings or have to start over. I would of course set up 301 redirect, but is there more I need to do? What is the best way to change URL for already ranking pages?
Technical SEO | | GoMentor0 -
Home Page Ranking Instead of Service Pages
Hi everyone! I've noticed that many of our clients have pages addressing specific queries related to specific services on their websites, but that the Home Page is increasingly showing as the "ranking" page. For example, a plastic surgeon we work with has a page specifically talking about his breast augmentation procedure for Miami, FL but instead of THAT page showing in the search results, Google is using his home page. Noticing this across the board. Any insights? Should we still be optimizing these specific service pages? Should I be spending time trying to make sure Google ranks the page specifically addressing that query because it SHOULD perform better? Thanks for the help. Confused SEO :/, Ricky Shockley
Technical SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
How do I redirect the Author archive page in Wordpress?
If you do a search for my name on Google, the first result is the author archive page of my Wordpress blog. I would like to redirect the author page to my "about me" page but cannot add a 301 as the author page is created dynamically in Wordpress. Anyone know how I can do this?
Technical SEO | | richdan0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
When creating parent and child pages should key words be repeated in url and page title?
We are in the direct mail advertising business: PrintLabelAndMail.com Example: Parent:
Technical SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach
Postcard Direct Mail Children:
Postcard Mailings
Postcard Design
Postcard Samples
Postcard Pricing
Postcard Advantages should "postcard" be repeated in the URL and Page Title? and in this example should each of the 5 children link back directly to the parent or would it be better to "daisy chain" them using each as parent for the next?0 -
Two META Robots tags on a page - which will win?
Hi, Does anybody know which meta-robots tag will "win" if there is more than one on a page? The situation:
Technical SEO | | jmueller
our CMS is not very flexible and so we have segments of META-Tags on the page that originate from templates.
Now any author can add any meta-tag from within his article-editor.
The logic delivering the pages does not care if there might be more than one meta-robots tag present (one from template, one from within the article). Now we could end up with something like this: Which one will be regarded by google & co?
First?
Last?
None? Thanks a lot,
Jan0 -
Drupal URL Aliases vs 301 Redirects + Do URL Aliases create duplicates?
Hi all! I have just begun work on a Drupal site which heavily uses the URL Aliases feature. I fear that it is creating duplicate links. For example:: we have http://www.URL.com/index.php and http://www.URL.com/ In addition we are about to switch a lot of links and want to keep the search engine benefit. Am I right in thinking URL aliases change the URL, while leaving the old URL live and without creating search engine friendly redirects such as 301s? Thanks for any help! Christian
Technical SEO | | ChristianMKTG0