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.
Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page
-
Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension. so they indexed www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's www.samplepage.com/page.html How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension? I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!
-
Yeah I looked further into the URL removal, but I guess technically I did not meet the criteria....and honestly I am fearful other potential implications of removal....I guess I will just have to wait for the 301 to ick in. I just cant believe there is not a simple .htaccess code to cause all URL's to show the .html extension. I mean it is a simple thing to implement the reverse and have the extension dropped...I mean....good lord...
Thanks for all your help though Mike, I truly appreciate the efforts!
-
LAME! You may just want to let the 301 redirect you have in place take its course or remove the URL from Google's index since it was added by mistake anyway.
Mike
-
Nope. .....good lord....
-
Nope.

-
If that does not work, give this a whirl:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{3,4}RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html -
Try:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]*[^./])$ /$1.html [R=301,L] -
That caused the same "500 Internal Server Error" .......

-
Try my code without all the other redirects, and see if it works. If it does, then add back the other redirects one by one until everything works.
-
Oh, and my site auditor is seeing it as a directory with a file in it??? Ugghhh....
-
Nope. Didn't work. I am seriously about to lose my mind with this....
-
Maybe give this a whirl:
If URL does not contain a period or end with a slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.|/$)
append .html to requested URL
RewriteRule (.*) /$1.html [L]
-
I get a server error when I do this? Sooo confused... Here is the htaccess changes I made. FYI...I have removed the code you told me to put in there temporarily so the site's not down. I attached the server error screenshot too...
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.htmlRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
You repeat this code a few times, maybe that's the problem? Pretty sure you only need it once:
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /The line:
RewriteEngine On
Also only needs to be included once in an htaccess file. You may want to remove all the other instances.
Try adding this code at the very top, after the first "RewriteEngine On":
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html -
Thanks Mike, you are awesome! I actually was thinking to do that, but I was concerned that it might have some larger implications?
I also just resubmitted a sitemap so hopefully that "might" speed up the crawl process...
Thanks again!
-
"I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began...."
It sounds like you accidently added this URL to the index. You can follow the procedure outlined below to request Google remove the specific URL from the index:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819
I checked your site's structure using Screaming Frog and it does not appear that you are linking to any non-.html versions. If I perform a scan using one of your non-.html pages, it appears that it only links to itself.
Since you have the 301 redirect in place, you can choose to wait it out and Google should correct things eventually; otherwise, requesting Google remove the URL is a faster... PERMANENT process.
Good luck.
Mike
-
No it's not a wordpress, it was created with Dreamweaver. I didn't make sample and sample.html same page, but google is treating it that way.... I have implemented the 301, so I guess I just have to wait for a crawl
-
Thank you very for your input! When I implement into my .htacces what you suggested I get a "Internet 500 Server Error" ? Maybe it would help if I list what I currently have in my .htaccess I had to redirect some old domains and did canonical redirects and default non .index....I hope this help, I am at my wit's end... I also attached a screenshot of the webmaster warning... THANKS!!!
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L]Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / -
Is this a wordpress based site ? What CMS are you using ? How were you able to get domain.com/sample and domain.com/sample.html be the same page ? Either way, canonical tag is the correct solution in this case. There's no need for a 301 and if you do 301 redirects, you are not really fixing the issue caused by your CMS System.
I would therefore strongly advise to use the canonical tag. That's the intended use of that tag.
-
A canonical tag won't physically redirect you when you visit the page, it just lets the search engines know which is the right page to index.
If you want to actually redirect using .htaccess, try using this code
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html
-
I tried the canonical and when I enter the url without the .html, it doesn't resolve to the url with the .html extension. I tried an .htaccess reirect...I am stumped, I can't get it to redirect automatically the the .html I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began....
-
Add a canonical tag to your header so that Google/Bing knows which version of your page they should be indexing.
You can also try looking into where the link to the non-html page is coming from. If it's an internal link, just change it so that Google doesn't continue to crawl 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
-
Password Protected Page(s) Indexed
Hi, I am wondering if my website can get a penalty if some password protected pages are showing up when I search on google: site:www.example.com/sub-group/pass-word-protected-page That shows that my password protected page was indexed either before or after adding the password protection. I've seen people suggest no indexing the page. Is that the best method to take care of this? What if we are planning on pushing the page live later on? All of these pages have no title tag, meta description, image alt text, etc. Should I add them for each page? I am wondering what is the best step, especially if we are planning on pushing the page(s) live. Thanks for any help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aua0 -
Category Pages & Content
Hi Does anyone have any great examples of an ecommerce site which has great content on category pages or product listing pages? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Google indexing pages from chrome history ?
We have pages that are not linked from site yet they are indexed in Google. It could be possible if Google got these pages from browser. Does Google takes data from chrome?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
[E-commerce] Duplicate content due to color variations (canonical/indexing)
Hello, We currently have a lot of color variations on multiple products with almost the same content. Even with our canonicals being set, Moz's crawling tool seems to flag them as duplicate content. What we have done so far: Choosing the best-selling color variation (our "master product") Adding a rel="canonical" to every variation (with our "master product" as the canonical URL) In my opinion, it should be enough to address this issue. However, being given the fact that it's flagged as duplicate by Moz, I was wondering if there is something else we should do? Should we add a "noindex,follow" to our child products and "index,follow" to our master product? (sounds to me like such a heavy change) Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EasyLounge0 -
Duplicate content on sites from different countries
Hi, we have a client who currently has a lot of duplicate content with their UK and US website. Both websites are geographically targeted (via google webmaster tools) to their specific location and have the appropriate local domain extension. Is having duplicate content a major issue, since they are in two different countries and geographic regions of the world? Any statement from Google about this? Regards, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney0 -
How to Remove Joomla Canonical and Duplicate Page Content
I've attempted to follow advice from the Q&A section. Currently on the site www.cherrycreekspine.com, I've edited the .htaccess file to help with 301s - all pages redirect to www.cherrycreekspine.com. Secondly, I'd added the canonical statement in the header of the web pages. I have cut the Duplicate Page Content in half ... now I have a remaining 40 pages to fix up. This is my practice site to try and understand what SEOmoz can do for me. I've looked at some of your videos on Youtube ... I feel like I'm scrambling around to the Q&A and the internet to understand this product. I'm reading the beginners guide.... any other resources would be helpful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deskstudio0 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
All page files in root? Or to use directories?
We have thousands of pages on our website; news articles, forum topics, download pages... etc - and at present they all reside in the root of the domain /. For example: /aosta-valley-i6816.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
/flight-sim-concorde-d1101.html
/what-is-best-addon-t3360.html We are considering moving over to a new URL system where we use directories. For example, the above URLs would be the following: /images/aosta-valley-i6816.html
/downloads/flight-sim-concorde-d1101.html
/forums/what-is-best-addon-t3360.html Would we have any benefit in using directories for SEO purposes? Would our current system perhaps mean too many files in the root / flagging as spammy? Would it be even better to use the following system which removes file endings completely and suggests each page is a directory: /images/aosta-valley/6816/
/downloads/flight-sim-concorde/1101/
/forums/what-is-best-addon/3360/ If so, what would be better: /images/aosta-valley/6816/ or /images/6816/aosta-valley/ Just looking for some clarity to our problem! Thank you for your help guys!0