Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?

    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.

    Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?

    On-Page Optimization
    2
    5
    864
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • webbutler13
      webbutler13 last edited by

      I want to forward all urls to http:www.mysite.com but am a little confuse because I am getting duplicate content error:

      Pages with Duplicate Page Content

      as of Jan 15http://titanappliancerepair.com/ 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.html 1 duplicate*****************************************************************What should I put ion htaccess file so I can forwardhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.htmlhttp://titanappliancerepair.comhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/to  http://www.titanappliancerepair.comor what is the correct way to do it?I'm confused because when I enter http://titanappliancerepair.com/ in browser it showshttp://titanappliancerepair.com so how can it be considered duplicate content?.Can someone help?I have godaddy and they have gave me this code to put RewriteEngine on
      rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com [nc]
      rewriterule ^(.
      )$ http://www.coolexample.com/$1 [r=301,nc]What is correct?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MickEdwards
        MickEdwards @webbutler13 last edited by

        your directories have duplication.  For example: http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/about-us.html and http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/about-us

        You may also need   RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301**,**L]

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • webbutler13
          webbutler13 last edited by

          Ok I have added this to htaccess file and everything seems to be redirecting in browser ok but is it good enough for google?

          Can someone check and tell me if it is correct , if not can you help with code? Thanks in advance!

          RewriteEngine on
          rewritecond %{http_host} ^titanappliancerepair.com [nc]
          rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

          RewriteEngine on
          rewritecond %{http_host} ^titanappliancerepair.com/ [nc]
          rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

          RewriteEngine on
          rewritecond %{http_host} ^titanappliancerepair.com/index.html [nc]
          rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

          RewriteEngine on
          RewriteBase /

          redirect html pages to the root domain

          rewriterule ^index.html$ / [r=301,nc]

          MickEdwards 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MickEdwards
            MickEdwards last edited by

            It looks like you are redirecting any URL back to itself.

            You want something like this which will remove index.html and enforce a trailing slash-

            RewriteRule ^(.*)/index.html$ /$1/ [R=301,L]

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • webbutler13
              webbutler13 last edited by

              This is what I have so far in htaccess file

              RewriteEngine on
              rewritecond %{http_host} ^titanappliancerepair.com [nc]
              rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

              RewriteEngine on
              rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com/ [nc]
              rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

              RewriteEngine on
              rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com/index.html [nc]
              rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

              RewriteEngine on
              rewritecond %{http_host} ^www.titanappliancerepair.com/index.html [nc]
              rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.titanappliancerepair.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • leadforms

                301 Redirects - Large .htaccess file question

                We are moving about 5000 pages from root into different folders. We need to individually 301 each page because the are sitting at root level now: mysite.com/page.com We want to move them to: mysite.com/folder/page.html etc I dont think redirect match can works because of the different files names and folders they are being moved in to. Will 5000 entries in .htacess slow site loading? Any other suggestions how to handle?

                On-Page Optimization | | leadforms
                0
              • InternetRep

                Does Google penalize you for reindexing multiple URLS?

                Hello, Just a quick, question! I was wanting to know if multiple page indexing (site overhaul) could cause a drop in organic traffic ranking or be penalized by Google for submitting multiple pages at one time. Thanks

                On-Page Optimization | | InternetRep
                0
              • Gavo

                Meta title not showing up correctly on SERP

                We have an issue with some clients on a Wordpress CMS where title tags implemented on a Yoast SEO plugin for the Homepage are not coming up as we'd implemented them. However, the source code shows we'd implemented them correctly according to what we'd wanted.**For example, this is the title tag we implemented in the CMS:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingSource code shows:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingHowever, SERP results shows:**Jack's Towing | Towing Services Alberta This is not an issue with the rest of the other pages and there isn't a global template for our client's sites. It's perplexing that it's only happening on the Homepage and this is across for 3 of our clients' sites.Even more perplexing, recently we've noticed that SERP is only showing the client's business name as the title tag and this is across for 2 out of the 3 clients we'd mentioned above. Nothing has changed in the back-end.Would appreciate some insight on this issue!

                On-Page Optimization | | Gavo
                4
              • jeeyer

                Dynamic URL Parameters + Woocommerce create 404 errors

                Hi Guys,
                Our latest Moz crawl shows a lot of 404-errors for pages that create dynamical links for users? (I guess it are dynamic links, not sure). Situation: On a page which shows products from brand X users can use the pagination icons on the bottom, or click on: View: / 24/48/All.
                When a user clicks 48 the end of the link will be /?show_products=48
                I think there were some pages that could show 48 products but do not exist anymore (because products are sold out for example), and that's why they show 404's and Moz reports them. How do I deal with these 404-errors? I can't set a 301-redirect because it depends on how many products are shown (it changes every time).
                Should I just ignore these kind of 404-errors? Or what is the best way to handle this situation?

                On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
                0
              • rohanarora536

                Which is Best Practice for creating URLs for subdomain?

                My website is related to education. We have created sub domains for all major colleges, universities & Entrance exams like Gre, Toefl ETC. for eg:  amityuniversity.abc.com (Amity is Name of University ) Now if have to mention city name in URL as well (college is located in multiple locations) amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
                amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com Now my Q is can we use hyphens in sub domains if we have to add city name or shall we create without using any  hyphens. In Directory  structure we can always separate words with hyphens, can we follow same practice in subdomain as well Which is a  best URL for subdomain amity-university-delhi.abc.com
                amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
                or amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com

                On-Page Optimization | | rohanarora536
                0
              • SamCUK

                Rel="canonical" on home page?

                I'm using wordpress and the all in one seo pack with the canonical option checked. As I understand it the rel="canonical" tag should be added to pages that are duplicate or similar to tell google that another page (one without the rel="canonical" tag) is the correct one as the url in the tag is pointing google towards it. Why then does the all in one seo pack add rel="canonical" to every page on my site including the home page? Isn't that confusing for google?

                On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
                0
              • CommercePundit

                How to Define Best URL Structure for Product Pages?

                I am working on my website to edit structure with help of Google's search engine optimization starter guide. There is really good instruction to define URL structure which help us to perform well over Google's organic search. I have resolved issues regarding category pages but, I have confusion to define best URL structure for product pages. My website's product page URL structure is as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-slpt758-f13-red.html http://www.vistastores.com/homefurniture-winsomewood-93630.html URL structure is constructed with following terms. 1. Root Category Name (Market Umbrellas or Home Furniture or ....) 2. Brand Name 3. Manufacturer Part Number I am not happy with this structure and also not performing well over Google's organic search. I am thinking to include product name or title tag in URL after root domain. But, it may create very long URL and create issues in organic search display. Does it really matter to perform well over Google's organic search? How can I define best URL structure for product pages?

                On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit
                0
              • MeghanPrudencio

                Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?

                Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy

                On-Page Optimization | | MeghanPrudencio
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.