Pages with duplicate meta descriptions
-
We have around 17 pages have underscores in the URL. From the 17 pages, we have changed 3 pages URL for example if the url is test_sample_demo.html, we have changed as test-sample-demo.html
After the updates, we have made redirect as follows
Redirect 301 test_sample_demo.html test-sample-demo.html
Presently google webmaster tool shows as "Pages with duplicate meta descriptions" & "Pages with duplicate title tags" for changed pages
How to fix this. Please help us
-
Hi,
It sounds like the 301 isn't implemented correctly OR Google didn't yet crawl the old URLs after you implemented the redirect.
How long ago did you change the URLs? If it's only a few days ago I'd just wait for Google to crawl your old URLs again and detect the 301.
Hope it helps.
-
This is likely to be Google's auditing system (from within Google Search Console) errors and is (probably) not your fault. If pages which are redirecting are being flagged as having duplicate Meta descriptions, that is demonstrably and necessarily factually inaccurate. A page which redirects somewhere else **never serves its source code **to Google, users or anyone else (assuming that the redirect is global, of course). If the source code is never seen, Google should not be able to find any Meta description let alone a duplicate one.
In all likelihood Google is comparing the new URLs against cached versions of the old pages (instead of re-visiting the old addresses as live URLs like it should do). As such it believes there's duplicate Meta data. When it eventually bothers to _actually _re-crawl the old URLs - it will eventually work out its issues and fix itself. If you want to speed it along, Fetch and render the old URLs so that Google knows they are actually redirecting now. Following that, spam the 'mark as fixed' thing until it complies with your work.
If however you are exempting Google from those particular redirects (maybe via the Googlebot user-agent), then obviously it can't see the redirects and is still accessing the old page-versions. Make sure that Google follows 301 redirects in the same way that users are forced to.
Be sure to test the redirects manually using something like this chrome extension. Test that the redirects work. Set your user-agent to Googlebot, do a hard refresh to clear your cache - try the page again. Try using a VPN to access the redirects from servers in different locations (try the UK, somewhere in Europe, the USA). Sometimes redirects are 'conditional' and if Google is somehow slipping through the net, that's a problem for you. Never just accept "well someone told me it was coded like this so it must always apply". Test manually, work out the real truth
Hope that helps!
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
-
Duplicate page titles for blog snippets pages
I can't figure the answer to this issue, on my blog I have a number of pages which each show snippets and an image for each blog entry, these are called /recent-weddings/page/1 /2 /3 and so on. I'm getting duplicate page titles for these but can't find anywhere on Wordpress to set a unique title for them. So http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/2/ has the same title as http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/3/
Technical SEO | | simonatkinsphoto0 -
Issue: Duplicate Page Content > Wordpress Comments Page
Hello Moz Community, I've create a campaign in Moz and received hundreds of errors, regarding "Duplicate Page Content". After some review, I've found that 99% of the errors in the "Duplicate Page Content" report are occurring due to Wordpress creating a new comment page (with the original post detail), if a comment is made on a blog post. The post comment can be displayed on the original blog post, but also viewable on a second URL, created by Wordpress. http://www.Example.com/example-post http://www.Example.com/example-post/comment-page-1 Anyone else experience this issue in Wordpress or this same type of report in Moz? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | DomainUltra0 -
Does google like Category pages or pages with lots of Products on them?
We are having an issue with getting Google to rank the page we want. To have this page http://www.jakewilson.com/c/52/-/346/Cruiser-Motorcycle-Tires rank for the key word Cruiser Motorcycle Tires; however, this page http://www.jakewilson.com/t/52/-/343/752/Cruiser-Motorcycle-Tires is ranking instead and it has less links and page authority according to site explorer and it is farther down in the hierarchy. I am wondering if google just likes pages that have actual products on them instead of a page leading to the page with all the products. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | DoRM0 -
Issue: Duplicate Page Content
Hi All, I am getting warnings about duplicate page content. The pages are normally 'tag' pages. I have some blog posts tagged with multiple 'tags'. Does it really affect my site?. I am using wordpress and Yoast SEO plugin. Thanks
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
Items 1 to 9 of 22484 total in our Meta Description
Our homepage on our ecommerce site has a category as part of the front page. Unfortunately the top of the category says: Items 1 to 9 of 22484 total Is there a way through GWMT or any other method of stopping Google from adding this on to the front of our Meta Description? Or is the only solution to remove it from the page all together?
Technical SEO | | Benj250 -
How do I deal with my pages being seen as duplicate content by SeoMoz?
My Dashboard is giving my lots of warnings for duplicate content but it all seems to have something to do with the www and the slash / For example: http://www.ebow.ie/ is seen as having the same duplicate content as http:/ebow.ie/ and http://www.ebow.ie Alos lots to do with how Wordpress categorizes pages and tags that is driving me bonkers! Any help appreciated! Dave. seomoz.png
Technical SEO | | ebowdublin0 -
Wordpress duplicate pages
I am using Wordpress and getting duplicate content Crawler error for following two pages http://edustars.yourstory.in/tag/edupristine/ http://edustars.yourstory.in/tag/education-startups/ These two are tags which take you to the same page. All the other tags/categories which take you to the same page or have same title are also throwing errors, how do i fix it?
Technical SEO | | bhanu22170 -
Using alt-codes such as ? in META title / description
Noticed a search result recently that really caught my eye and certainly stood out among the other 10 results on the page, the META description contained the following snippet: "Learn more about our ★★★★★ rated service..." Any opinions on how using such alt-chars might effect search positioning when used in either the title or description META tags? The starts certainly looked very different to anything else on the page... The claim of 5 star rated service was pretty much accurate so it was genuine and fair to use it...
Technical SEO | | digitalarts0