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.
Trailing Slashes for Magento CMS pages - 2 URLS - Duplicate content
-
Hello,
Can anyone help me find a solution to Fixing and Creating Magento CMS pages to only use one URL and not two URLS?
I found a previous article that applies to my issue, which is using htaccess to redirect request for pages in magento 301 redirect to slash URL from the non-slash URL. I dont understand the syntax fully in htaccess , but I used this code below.
This code below fixed the CMS page redirection but caused issues on other pages, like all my categories and products with this error:
"This webpage has a redirect loop
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS"
Assuming you're running at domain root. Change to working directory if needed.
RewriteBase /
# www check
If you're running in a subdirectory, then you'll need to add that in
to the redirected url (http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]Trailing slash check
Don't fix direct file links
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ $1/ [L,R=301]Finally, forward everything to your front-controller (index.php)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .* index.php [QSA,L] -
301's are not difficult for me, but handling the code for a logic to re-route requests for "URL" to "URL/" is something I dont know how to do. I can manually 301 or rel canonical my CMS pages on Magento everytime, but that defeats the purpose or the automation in htaccess I am trying to get working.
thanks
-
Thank You Kevin.
This is almost the default Magento htaccess file(out of the box), I think I had a couple entries to fix a couple other issues, the code I just added that isnt working is in the middle of the htaccess, its commented starting with this: ** "## slash removal re-write done by ALEX MEADE for iamgreenminded.com**
uncomment these lines for CGI mode
make sure to specify the correct cgi php binary file name
it might be /cgi-bin/php-cgi
Action php5-cgi /cgi-bin/php5-cgi
AddHandler php5-cgi .php
############################################
GoDaddy specific options
Options -MultiViews
you might also need to add this line to php.ini
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
if it still doesn't work, rename php.ini to php5.ini
############################################
this line is specific for 1and1 hosting
#AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
#AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php############################################
default index file
DirectoryIndex index.php
############################################
adjust memory limit
php_value memory_limit 64M
php_value memory_limit 256M
php_value max_execution_time 18000############################################
disable magic quotes for php request vars
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc off
############################################
disable automatic session start
before autoload was initialized
php_flag session.auto_start off
############################################
enable resulting html compression
#php_flag zlib.output_compression on
###########################################
disable user agent verification to not break multiple image upload
php_flag suhosin.session.cryptua off
###########################################
turn off compatibility with PHP4 when dealing with objects
php_flag zend.ze1_compatibility_mode Off
<ifmodule mod_security.c="">###########################################
disable POST processing to not break multiple image upload</ifmodule>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off############################################
enable apache served files compression
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip
Insert filter on all content
###SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
Insert filter on selected content types only
#AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript
Netscape 4.x has some problems...
#BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
#BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip
MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
#BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Don't compress images
#SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary
Make sure proxies don't deliver the wrong content
#Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary
############################################
make HTTPS env vars available for CGI mode
SSLOptions StdEnvVars
############################################
enable rewrites
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on############################################
slash removal re-write done by ALEX MEADE for iamgreenminded.com
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !.(gif|jpg|png|jpeg|css|js)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/ [L,R=301]
########################################################################################
you can put here your magento root folder
path relative to web root
#RewriteBase /magento/
############################################
uncomment next line to enable light API calls processing
RewriteRule ^api/([a-z][0-9a-z_]+)/?$ api.php?type=$1 [QSA,L]
############################################
rewrite API2 calls to api.php (by now it is REST only)
RewriteRule ^api/rest api.php?type=rest [QSA,L]
############################################
workaround for HTTP authorization
in CGI environment
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
############################################
TRACE and TRACK HTTP methods disabled to prevent XSS attacks
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^TRAC[EK]
RewriteRule .* - [L,R=405]############################################
redirect for mobile user agents
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/mobiledirectoryhere/.$
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} "android|blackberry|ipad|iphone|ipod|iemobile|opera mobile|palmos|webos|googlebot-mobile" [NC]
#RewriteRule ^(.)$ /mobiledirectoryhere/ [L,R=302]############################################
always send 404 on missing files in these folders
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(media|skin|js)/
############################################
never rewrite for existing files, directories and links
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l############################################
rewrite everything else to index.php
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]
############################################
Prevent character encoding issues from server overrides
If you still have problems, use the second line instead
AddDefaultCharset Off
#AddDefaultCharset UTF-8############################################
Add default Expires header
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#expires
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
############################################
By default allow all access
Order allow,deny
Allow from all###########################################
Deny access to release notes to prevent disclosure of the installed Magento version
<files release_notes.txt="">order allow,deny
deny from all</files>############################################
If running in cluster environment, uncomment this
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags
#FileETag none
Permanent URL redirect - generated by www.rapidtables.com
Redirect 301 /thebirdword http://www.thebirdword.com
-
You probably have other redirects in your .htaccess and possibly in your website code. The order of your rewrites is also important. Publish your Apache config and I'll take a look.
FYI, there are better resources for technical issue than MOZ. Most here are not developers/IT specialists; we're more like SEO strategists and business managers.
-
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !example.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]I have found both of the articles you linked here, nothing is working - any code I try gives me the same error on most of my pages:
"This webpage has a redirect loop
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS"
Still need a fix for this
thanks
-
Yes, server redirects are necessary. Try these solutions to see which one works for you:
http://ralphvanderpauw.com/seo/how-to-301-redirect-a-trailing-slash-in-htaccess/
http://enarion.net/web/htaccess/trailing-slash/
You might want to consider moving to Nginx. You'll notice amazing speed and stability improvement with Nginx, Redis Session Cache, Memcached, OpCache, Ngx_pagespeed, and Magento Cache Storage Management. I can help much more with Nginx redirects and conf files--I gave up Apache years ago. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
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
-
Should I switch from trailing slash to no trailing slash?
I have a website which has had trailing slashes added to the URLs by 301 redirects for over 3 years. However, the custom CMS does not allow navigation links to have trailing slashes. This is resulting in 301s every time a user clicks a navigation link. The site ranks fairy well for some moderately competitive keywords. If you were in my shoes, would you remove the forced trailing slash redirect in the .htaccess and replace it with a trailing slash removal redirect, or would you leave it like it is? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ICON_Malta
James p.s. the CMS also doesn't allow canonicals.0 -
Duplicate content due to parked domains
I have a main ecommerce website with unique content and decent back links. I had few domains parked on the main website as well specific product pages. These domains had some type in traffic. Some where exact product names. So main main website www.maindomain.com had domain1.com , domain2.com parked on it. Also had domian3.com parked on www.maindomain.com/product1. This caused lot of duplicate content issues. 12 months back, all the parked domains were changed to 301 redirects. I also added all the domains to google webmaster tools. Then removed main directory from google index. Now realize few of the additional domains are indexed and causing duplicate content. My question is what other steps can I take to avoid the duplicate content for my my website 1. Provide change of address in Google search console. Is there any downside in providing change of address pointing to a website? Also domains pointing to a specific url , cannot provide change of address 2. Provide a remove page from google index request in Google search console. It is temporary and last 6 months. Even if the pages are removed from Google index, would google still see them duplicates? 3. Ask google to fetch each url under other domains and submit to google index. This would hopefully remove the urls under domain1.com and doamin2.com eventually due to 301 redirects. 4. Add canonical urls for all pages in the main site. so google will eventually remove content from doman1 and domain2.com due to canonical links. This wil take time for google to update their index 5. Point these domains elsewhere to remove duplicate contents eventually. But it will take time for google to update their index with new non duplicate content. Which of these options are best best to my issue and which ones are potentially dangerous? I would rather not to point these domains elsewhere. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
Duplicate content on recruitment website
Hi everyone, It seems that Panda 4.2 has hit some industries more than others. I just started working on a website, that has no manual action, but the organic traffic has dropped massively in the last few months. Their external linking profile seems to be fine, but I suspect usability issues, especially the duplication may be the reason. The website is a recruitment website in a specific industry only. However, they posts jobs for their clients, that can be very similar, and in the same time they can have 20 jobs with the same title and very similar job descriptions. The website currently have over 200 pages with potential duplicate content. Additionally, these jobs get posted on job portals, with the same content (Happens automatically through a feed). The questions here are: How bad would this be for the website usability, and would it be the reason the traffic went down? Is this the affect of Panda 4.2 that is still rolling What can be done to resolve these issues? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQi0 -
Removing duplicate content
Due to URL changes and parameters on our ecommerce sites, we have a massive amount of duplicate pages indexed by google, sometimes up to 5 duplicate pages with different URLs. 1. We've instituted canonical tags site wide. 2. We are using the parameters function in Webmaster Tools. 3. We are using 301 redirects on all of the obsolete URLs 4. I have had many of the pages fetched so that Google can see and index the 301s and canonicals. 5. I created HTML sitemaps with the duplicate URLs, and had Google fetch and index the sitemap so that the dupes would get crawled and deindexed. None of these seems to be terribly effective. Google is indexing pages with parameters in spite of the parameter (clicksource) being called out in GWT. Pages with obsolete URLs are indexed in spite of them having 301 redirects. Google also appears to be ignoring many of our canonical tags as well, despite the pages being identical. Any ideas on how to clean up the mess?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Is a different location in page title, h1 title, and meta description enough to avoid Duplicate Content concern?
I have a dynamic website which will have location-based internal pages that will have a <title>and <h1> title, and meta description tag that will include the subregion of a city. Each page also will have an 'info' section describing the generic product/service offered which will also include the name of the subregion. The 'specific product/service content will be dynamic but in some cases will be almost identical--ie subregion A may sometimes have the same specific content result as subregion B. Will the difference of just the location put in each of the above tags be enough for me to avoid a Duplicate Content concern?</p></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | couponguy0 -
Is an RSS feed considered duplicate content?
I have a large client with satellite sites. The large site produces many news articles and they want to put an RSS feed on the satellite sites that will display the articles from the large site. My question is, will the rss feeds on the satellite sites be considered duplicate content? If yes, do you have a suggestion to utilize the data from the large site without being penalized? If no, do you have suggestions on what tags should be used on the satellite pages? EX: wrapped in tags? THANKS for the help. Darlene
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gXeSEO0 -
Magento: URLs for Products in Multiple Categories
I am working in Magento to build out a large e-commerce site with several thousand products. It's a great platform, but I have run into the issue of what it does to URLs when you put a product into multiple categories. Basically, "a book" in two categories would make two URLs for one product: 1) /books/a-book 2) author-name/a-book So, I need to come up with a solution for this. It seems I have two options: Found this from a Magento SEO article: 'Magento gives you the ability to add the name of categories to path for product URL's. Because Magento doesn't support this functionality very well - it creates duplicate content issues - it is a very good idea to disable this. To do this, go to System => Configuration => Catalog => Search Engine Optimization and set "Use categories path for product URL's to "no".' This would solve the issues and be a quick fix, but I think it's a double edged sword, because then we lose the SEO value of our well named categories being in the URL. Use Canonical tags. To be fair, I'm not even sure this is possible. Even though it is creating different URLs and, thus, poses a risk of "duplicate content" being crawled, there really is only one page on the admin side. So, I can't go to all of the "duplicate" pages and put a canonical tag, because those duplicate pages don't really exist on the back-end. Does that make sense? After typing this out, it seems like the best thing to do probably will be to just turn off categories in the URL from the admin side. However, I'd still love any input from the community on this. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Trailing Slash: Lost in Redirection?
Question here, but first the lead in. As you all know, 301 redirects don't pass on 100% of link juice. I've set up my site using htaccess to redirect all non-ww to www and redirect all URLs to have a trailing slash. FYI, the preferred domain is selected in WMT and canonical URLs appear in the head section of all pages. So now what happens when sites that link to mine don't include either the www or the trailing slash, which is actually quite common? Of course, asking the site own to correct the link is ideal, but that's not always possible. So if thousands of links on external sites are linking to http://www.site.com instead of http://www.site.com/, won't lots of link juice get lost in redirection? I can't think of anything more I can do to the URLs to reduce duplicate content and juice dilution. Thoughts? Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kwoolf0