How to find original URLS after Hosting Company added canonical URLs, URL rewrites and duplicate content.
-
We recently changed hosting companies for our ecommerce website. The hosting company added some functionality such that duplicate content and/or mirrored pages appear in the search engines.
To fix this problem, the hosting company created both canonical URLs and URL rewrites. Now, we have page A (which is the original page with all the link juice) and page B (which is the new page with no link juice or SEO value). Both pages have the same content, with different URLs.
I understand that a canonical URL is the way to tell the search engines which page is the preferred page in cases of duplicate content and mirrored pages. I also understand that canonical URLs tell the search engine that page B is a copy of page A, but page A is the preferred page to index.
The problem we now face is that the hosting company made page A a copy of page B, rather than the other way around. But page A is the original page with the seo value and link juice, while page B is the new page with no value. As a result, the search engines are now prioritizing the newly created page over the original one.
I believe the solution is to reverse this and make it so that page B (the new page) is a copy of page A (the original page). Now, I would simply need to put the original URL as the canonical URL for the duplicate pages. The problem is, with all the rewrites and changes in functionality, I no longer know which URLs have the backlinks that are creating this SEO value.
I figure if I can find the back links to the original page, then I can find out the original web address of the original pages.
My question is, how can I search for back links on the web in such a way that I can figure out the URL that all of these back links are pointing to in order to make that URL the canonical URL for all the new, duplicate pages.
-
My first question back at you is why is your hosting company deciding your canonical structure for you? a hosting company should just host and you should be using canonical tags and .htaccess to sort out your own canonical URLs. So my gut reaction is to change hosting company.
After that:
- Open Site Explorer - put both URLs in and see which ones are being linked to and which has the highest value.
If you're not a PRO member then take the 30 day trial and use OSE to sort this issue out. You'll be glad you did.
After that... seriously as a web designer & SEO, not having control of my own URLs would annoy the heck out of me, so change hosting provider. That'll be the second biggest favour you could give yourself
Slightly opinionated, I know, but at the end of the day it's your website not your host's.
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
-
Value in Consolidating Similar Sites / Duplicate Content for Different URLs
We have 5 ecommerce sites: one company site with all products, and then four product-specific sites with relevant URL titles and products divided up between them (www.companysite.com, www.product1.com, www.product2.com, etc). We're thinking of consolidating the smaller sites into our most successful site (www.product1.com) in order to save management time and money, even though I hate to lose the product-specific URLs in search results. Is this a wise move? If we proceed, all of the products will be available on both our company site and our most successful site (www.company.com & www.product1.com). This would unfortunately give us two sites of duplicate content, since the products will have the same pictures, descriptions, etc. The only difference would be the URL. Would we face penalties from Google, even though it would make sense to continue to carry our products on our company site?
Technical SEO | | versare0 -
Adding content into an iframe
I want to buy an app/program that will help me create unique content but the content will be inserted to the page via an iframe. I have heard that iframes are problematic. I know that there will not be a lot of indexable content from this but I think that it will make people want to link to me. I would like to hear from someone's experience if I should go ahead or not.
Technical SEO | | JillB20130 -
Panda: Are our ads duplicate content or just structural and not even considered?
We have hundreds and hundreds of pages with similar ads on. We are getting content written for these pages right now and we're removing some pages, but we're wondering how Panda might see the ads which we have across the site? The ads consist of the name of a company and a description and a few other bits. The description is the same on all pages that a company's ad is listed on - and that can be hundreds of pages. You can see some examples here: http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/financialanalyst.htm http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/financialaccountant.htm http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/accounting/skills/indandcomm/assistantaccountant.htm What we're wondering is whether Google Panda might be seeing the description of the company as internal duplicate content or just structural and not even considered as part of the Panda algorithm? Or something else? Or wouldn't it be clear in this case? Clearly Panda wouldn't hit duplicate content in nav bards, sidebars etc... but this is in the content area of the page so it did make us wonder. This could make a difference to how we proceed so we appreciate your thoughts. Regards, Phil
Technical SEO | | agencycentral0 -
Duplicate Page Content
I've got several pages of similar products that google has listed as duplicate content. I have them all set up with rel="prev" and rel="next tags telling google that they are part of a group but they've still got them listed as duplicates. Is there something else I should do for these pages or is that just a short falling of googles webmaster tools? One of the pages: http://www.jaaronwoodcountertops.com/wood-countertop-gallery/walnut-countertop-9.html
Technical SEO | | JAARON0 -
Duplicate content issue
Hi everyone, I have an issue determining what type of duplicate content I have. www.example.com/index.php?mact=Calendar,m57663,default,1&m57663return_id=116&m57663detailpage=&m57663year=2011&m57663month=6&m57663day=19&m57663display=list&m57663return_link=1&m57663detail=1&m57663lang=en_GB&m57663returnid=116&page=116 Since I am not an coding expert, to me it looks like it is a URL parameter duplicate content. Is it? At the same time "return_id" would makes me think it is a session id duplicate content. I am confused about how to determine different types of duplicate content, even by reading articles on Seomoz about it: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content. Could someone help me on how to recognize different types of duplicate content? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Canonical URL
In our campaign, I see this notices Tag value
Technical SEO | | shebinhassan
florahospitality.com/ar/careers.aspx Description
Using rel=canonical suggests to search engines which URL should be seen as canonical. What does it mean? Because If I try to view the source code of our site, it clearly gives me the canonical url.0 -
Duplicate page content errors in SEOmoz
Hi everyone, we just launched this new site and I just ran it through SEOmoz and I got a bunch of duplicate page content errors. Here's one example -- it says these 3 are duplicate content: http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-black-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-camel-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-gray-3inch You'll see from the pages that the titles, images and small pieces of the copy are all unique -- but there is some copy that is the same (after all, these are pretty much the same shoe, just a different color). So, why am I getting this error and is there any best way to address? Thanks so much!
Technical SEO | | ketanmv
Ketan0 -
Duplicate canonical URLs in WordPress
Hi everyone, I'm driving myself insane trying to figure this one out and am hoping someone has more technical chops than I do. Here's the situation... I'm getting duplicate canonical tags on my pages and posts, one is inside of the WordPress SEO (plugin) commented section, and the other is elsewhere in the header. I am running the latest version of WordPress 3.1.3 and the Genesis framework. After doing some testing and adding the following filters to my functions.php: <code>remove_action('wp_head', 'genesis_canonical'); remove_action('wp_head', 'rel_canonical');</code> ... what I get is this: With the plugin active + NO "remove action" - duplicate canonical tags
Technical SEO | | robertdempsey
With the plugin disabled + NO "remove action" - a single canonical tag
With the plugin disabled + A "remove action" - no canonical tag I have tried using only one of these remove_actions at a time, and then combining them both. Regardless, as long as I have the plugin active I get duplicate canonical tags. Is this a bug in the plugin, perhaps somehow enabling the canonical functionality of WordPress? Thanks for your help everyone. Robert Dempsey0