Duplicate content resulting from js redirect?
-
I recently created a cname (e.g. m.client-site .com) and added some js (supplied by
mobile site vendor to the head which is designed to detect if the user agent is a mobi device or not. This is part of the js:
var CurrentUrl = location.href var noredirect = document.location.search; if (noredirect.indexOf("no_redirect=true") < 0){ if ((navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPhone|iPod|BlackBerry|Android.*Mobile|webOS|Window
Now... Webmaster Tools is indicating 2 url versions for each page on the site - for example:
1.) /content-page.html
2.) /content-page.html?no_redirect=true
and resulting in duplicate page titles and meta descriptions.
I am not quite adept enough at either js or htaccess to really grasp what's going on here... so an explanation of why this is occurring and how to deal with it would be appreciated!
-
You're welcome
-
That makes perfect sense. I think I will try instructing webmaster to ignore the variable as you initially suggested. It's the quickest approach
Thank you very much for your time and wisdom - much appreciated!
Dino
-
I'm not great with JS myself - I'm lucky enough to employ people to do that for me! However, here is what the script is doing:
- First check whether "no_direct=true" has been set - presumably to allow users to override the mobile version and view the full desktop version if they choose
- If that hasn't been set then look to see if they are using iPhone/iPod/Blackberry/Android browsers
- Presumably the next line is then redirecting.
That seems fairly logical - no real problem there. However the mobile version is getting picked up and indexed somewhere.
Because you want users to have access to that "duplicate" version, but don't want the search engines too you don't really want to either prevent this URL from existing or override it with .htaccess . It would be smarter to pick a method that targets the search engines, such as:
- Stop them crawling it (through webmaster tools or robots.txt)
- Add a no-index tag to it
- Canonical it back to the main content
-
Hi Mat,
Thanks for the response!
I am really trying to understand what is occurring here and how to remedy via js or htaccess.
Can you please provide further insight?
Thank you.
-
The easiest way to fix this is to tell google to ignore the URL variable no_redirect . You can do this in webmaster tools under Configuration > URL parameters. find where no_redirect is listed, click edit and set it to "used for tracking".
Remember to do similar for bing.
You could also block these in robots.txt
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
-
How to fix Duplicate Content Warnings on Pagination? Indexed Pagination?
Hi all! So we have a Wordpress blog that properly has pagination tags of rel="prev" and rel="next" set up for pages, but we're still getting crawl errors with MOZ for duplicate content on all of our pagination pages. Also, we are having all of our pages indexed as well. I'm talking pages as deep as page 89 for the home page. Is this something I should ignore? Is it hurting my SEO potentially? If so, how can I start tackling it for a fix? Would "noindex" or "nofollow" be a good idea? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jampaper0 -
Pages with Duplicate Page Content (with and without www)
How can we resolve pages with duplicate page content? With and without www?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | directiq
Thanks in advance.0 -
A lot of news / Duplicate Content - what to do?
Hi All, I have a blog with a lot of content (news and pr messages), I want to move my blog to new domain. What is your recommendation? 1. Keep it as is. old articles -> 301 -> same article different URL
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPalmer
2. Remove all the duplicate content and create 301 from the old URL to my homepage.
3. Keep it as is, but add in the meta-tags NoIndex in duplicate articles. Thanks !0 -
Duplicate content across hundreds of Local sites and they all rank #1
Usually when we discuss duplicate content, we're addressing the topic of penalties or non-indexing. In this case, we're discussing ranking high with duplicate content. I've seen lots of dental, chiropractor and veterinarian sites built by companies that give them cookie cutter sites with the same copy. And they all rank #1 or #2. Here are two companies that do that:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | katandmouse
http://www.rampsites.com/rampsites/home_standard.asp?sectionid=4
http://mysocialpractice.com/about/ The later uses external blogs to provide inbound links to their clients' site, but not all services do that, in fact, this is the first time I've seen them with external blogs. Usually the blog with duplicate copy is ON SITE and the sites still rank #1. Query "Why Your Smile Prefers Water Over Soft Drinks" to see duplicate content on external blogs. Or "Remember the Mad Hatter from the childhood classic, Alice in Wonderland? Back then, the process of making hats involved using mercury compounds. Overexposure could produce symptoms referred to as being" for duplicate content on chiropractor sites that rank high. I've seen well optimized sites rank under them even though their sites have just as much quality content and it's all original with more engagement and inbound links. It appears to me that Google is turning a blind eye on duplicate content. Maybe because these are local businesses with local clientele it doesn't care that a chiropractor in NY has the same content as one in CA, just as the visitor doesn't care because the visitor in CA isn't look at a chiropractor's site in NY generally. So maybe geo-targeting the site has something to do with it. As a test, I should take the same copy and put it on a non-geo-targeted site and see if it will get indexed. I asked another Local SEO expert if she has run across this, probably the best in my opinion. She has and she finds it difficult to rank above them as well. It's almost as if Google is favoring those sites. So the question is, should all dentists, chiropractors and veterinarians give it up to these services? I shudder to think that, but, hey it's working and it's a whole lot less work - and maybe expense - for them.0 -
Duplicate blog content and NOINDEX
Suppose the "Home" page of your blog at www.example.com/domain/ displays your 10 most recent posts. Each post has its own permalink page (where you have comments/discussion, etc.). This obviously means that the last 10 posts show up as duplicates on your site. Is it good practice to use NOINDEX, FOLLOW on the blog root page (blog/) so that only one copy gets indexed? Thanks, Akira
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ahirai0 -
Duplicate Content on Press Release?
Hi, We recently held a charity night in store. And had a few local celebs turn up etc... We created a press release to send out to various media outlets, within the press release were hyperlinks to our site and links on certain keywords to specific brands on our site. My question is, should we be sending a different press release to each outlet to stop the duplicate content thing, or is sending the same release out to everyone ok? We will be sending approx 20 of these out, some going online and some not. So far had one local paper website, a massive football website and a local magazine site. All pretty much same content and a few pics. Any help, hints or tips on how to go about this if I am going to be sending out to a load of other sites/blogs? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
Duplicate Content Issue
Why do URL with .html or index.php at the end are annoying to the search engine? I heard it can create some duplicate content but I have no idea why? Could someone explain me why is that so? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Capitals in url creates duplicate content?
Hey Guys, I had a quick look around however I couldn't find a specific answer to this. Currently, the SEOmoz tools come back and show a heap of duplicate content on my site. And there's a fair bit of it. However, a heap of those errors are relating to random capitals in the urls. for example. "www.website.com.au/Home/information/Stuff" is being treated as duplicate content of "www.website.com.au/home/information/stuff" (Note the difference in capitals). Anyone have any recommendations as to how to fix this server side(keeping in mind it's not practical or possible to fix all of these links) or to tell Google to ignore the capitalisation? Any help is greatly appreciated. LM.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlS0