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.
Duplicate Content with ?Page ID's in WordPress
-
Hi there,
I'm trying to figure out the best way to solve a duplicate content problem that I have due to Page ID's that WordPress automatically assigns to pages. I know that in order for me to resolve this I have to use canonical urls but the problem for me is I can't figure out the URL structure.
Moz is showing me thousands of duplicate content errors that are mostly related to Page IDs
For example, this is how a page's url should look like on my site
Moz is telling me there are 50 duplicate content errors for this page. The page ID for this page is 82 so the duplicate content errors appear as follows
and so on. For 47 more pages. The problem repeats itself with other pages as well.
My permalinks are set to "Post Name" so I know that's not an issue.
What can I do to resolve this? How can I use canonical URLs to solve this problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
-
this might do it as well
A flexible pattern URL mapping is a way of redirecting all URLs that match a particular pattern, to equivalent destination URLs, using a single mapping. It does this by allowing you to parse out and name portions of the requested URL to substitute into the destination URL. These types of URL mappings are useful when you are changing the structure or format of your URLs, but want to make sure you can redirect requests for pages under their old URL structure to their new URLs.
An example of a flexible pattern URL is the following:
/myblog/:post-year/:post-month/*rest-of-url?id=:post-id
Each portion of the URL above that starts with a colon (:) creates a named component that is matched until the next delimiter character (./=&?), and any portion that starts with an asterisk (*) creates a named component that is matched until the end of the URL (up to the query string).
The named components can then be used in the URL mapping's destination, with each name included inside of curly braces. For example, the named components defined in the flexible pattern URL above could be used to create the following destination:
/newblog/{post-year}/{post-month}/post-{post-id}/{rest-of-url}
To demonstrate how this flexible pattern URL mapping would work, let's consider the following example requested URL and where it would be redirected. The named components in the requested and destination URLs are highlighted.
Requested URL: http://www.mydomain.com/myblog/2013/12/marketing/inbound-marketing-rocks?id=98765
Redirected to: http://www.mydomain.com/newblog/2013/12/post-98765/marketing/inbound-marketing-rocks
With this pattern-based URL mapping we were able to retain all of the important, identifying parts of the original URL and insert them into the new URL structure. In addition, with this particular mapping, we were able to:
- capture the variable-length {rest-of-url} component (i.e. marketing/inbound-marketing-rocks) to be used in the destination url, by using an asterisk (*) at the beginning of that component's definition
- move the {post-id} component from the query string in the original URL into the middle of the URL in the destination
-
you may want to remove the flash file from the website. It is not compatible with iPhones and flash is really something I would stay away from on websites.
This is flash
http://www.spamedica.com/wp-content/themes/spamedia/flash/spamedica_flash.swf
See why that's not good
http://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/46bca267a16b8726a26c7438e76317ef51b877be
Try
http://www.browserstack.com/responsive
Here's an example of the exact same thing using the gif
http://cl.ly/image/2t2d470b3A2F/Screen Recording 2014-09-23 at 12.58 PM.gif
iPhone
The http://www.siteground.com/ your host is great for shared hosting
your IP
181.224.137.194 - 126 other sites hosted on this server
I honestly would give them a call and have them correct your htaccess file
However if you want something that's going to be faster and focused 100% on WordPress use manage WordPress hosting provider. Like GetFlywheel you get your own VPS only one site per an IP no shared resources and this type of stuff is never a problem for them to fix.
You can migrate 100% free in addition.
Overall I would say that your site needs some TLC
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/exa05N/http://www.spamedica.com/
you have over 100 requests and your server does a good job of catching after it's been loaded but not that much prior to so the 1st visit will be slow.
Most important part is it needs to be responsive and work properly on mobile devices.
that includes using CSS 3 and HTML 5 to substitute for flash so render properly on all devices. In addition to allowing people to browse it on all devices.
http://www.spamedica.com/
Tested from New York City, New York, USA on September 23 at 14:00:29
<dl class="first">
<dt>Page size</dt>
<dd>1.9MB</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>Load time</dt>
<dd>2.31s</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>Requests</dt>
<dd>112</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="last">
<dt>Perf. grade</dt>
<dd>69/100</dd>
</dl>
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
You can check it with
https://yoast.com/wp-content/permalink-helper.php
https://yoast.com/change-wordpress-permalink-structure/
If you’re on Apache and you decide to do the redirect, having been on a
/yyyy/mm/dd/%postname%/
structure before, you might benefit from this simple redirect which you could throw into your .htaccess file:|
1
|RedirectMatch 301 /\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}/(.*) http://example.com/$1
| -
PS try to save your link structure to the way you want it and make sure you click the save button.
if it does not work there a problem that would require access to WordPress to fix
http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/39665/custom-htaccess-rewrite-rule-for-page
-
Rewrite the URLs your hosting company for a plug-in like
https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo-premium/
Yoast makes it better be best redirect plug-in for WordPress I know of.
You can use The redirection plug-in
https://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/
Hosting
http://getflywheel.com/help/do-you-support-htaccess-files/
You will want to clean up what WordPress did not.
Via 301 redirects it is most likely an error in your HTaccess file
Your WordPress install is not up to date as well you may want to ensure that is updated to 4.0.
Have http://getflywheel.com/tour/ do it
This is something I would recommend a company like Getflywheel.com at $15 a month you get manage WordPress your own all SSD VPS and all the issues with WordPress to take care of by them. http://getflywheel.com is a bargain.
Hope that helps,
Thomas
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 'meta title' issue (AMP & NON-AMP Pages)
how to fix duplicate meta title issue in amp and non-amp pages? example.com
On-Page Optimization | | 21centuryweb
example.com/amp We have set the 'meta title' in desktop version & we don't want to change the title for AMP page as we have more than 10K pages on the website. ----As per SEMRUSH Tool---- ABOUT THIS ISSUE It is a bad idea to duplicate your title tag content in your first-level header. If your page’s <title>and <h1> tags match, the latter may appear over-optimized to search engines. Also, using the same content in titles and headers means a lost opportunity to incorporate other relevant keywords for your page.</p> <p><strong>HOW TO FIX IT</strong></p> <p>Try to create different content for your <title> and <h1> tags.<br /><br />this is what they are recommending, for the above issue we have asked our team to create unique meta and post title for desktop version but what about AMP page?<br /><br />Please help!</p></title>0 -
How to fix duplicate content for homepage and index.html
Hello, I know this probably gets asked quite a lot but I haven't found a recent post about this in 2018 on Moz Q&A, so I thought I would check in and see what the best route/solution for this issue might be. I'm always really worried about making any (potentially bad/wrong) changes to the site, as it's my livelihood, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Moz, SEMRush and several other SEO tools are all reporting that I have duplicate content for my homepage and index.html (same identical page). According to Moz, my homepage (without index.html) has PA 29 and index.html has PA 15. They are both showing Status 200. I read that you can either do a 301 redirect or add rel=canonical I currently have a 301 setup for my http to https page and don't have any rel=canonical added to the site/page. What is the best and safest way to get rid of duplicate content and merge the my non index and index.html homepages together these days? I read that both 301 and canonical pass on link juice but I don't know what the best route for me is given what I said above. Thank you for reading, any input is greatly appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | dreservices0 -
How do I fix my portfolio causing duplicate content issues?
Hi, Im new to this whole duplicate content issue. I have a website, fatcatpaperie.com that I use the portofolio feature in Wordpress as my gallery for all my wedding invitations. I have a ton of duplicate content issues from this. I don't understand at all how to fix this. I'd appreciate any help! Below is an example of one duplicate content issue. They have slightly different names, different urls, different images and all have no text. But are coming up as duplicates. Would it be as easy as putting a different metadescription for each?? Thanks for the help! Rena | "Treasure" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/treasure-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 3 duplicates "Perennial" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/perennial-by-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 1 of 3 duplicates "Primrose" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/8675 1 0 0 0 200 2 of 3 duplicates "Catalina" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/catalina-designers-fine-press |
On-Page Optimization | | HonestSEOStudio0 -
Duplicate URL's in Sitemap? Is that a problem?
I submitted a sitemap to on Search Console - but noticed that there are duplicate URLs, is that a problem for Google?
On-Page Optimization | | Luciana_BAH0 -
Two URL's for the same page
Hi, on our site we have two separate URL's for a page that has the same content. So, for example - 'www.domain.co.uk/stuff' and 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' both have the same content on the page. We currently rank high in search for 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' for our targeted keyword, but there are numerous links on the site to www.domain.co.uk/stuff and also potentially inbound links to this page. Ideally we want just the www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff URL to be present on the site, what would be the best course of action to take? Would a simple Canonical tag from the '/stuff' URL which points to the '/things/stuff' page be wise? If we were to scrap the '/stuff' URL totally and redirect it to the 'things/stuff' URL and change all our on site links, would this be beneficial and not harm our current ranking for '/things/stuff'? We only want 1 URL for this page for numerous reasons (i.e, easier to track in Analytics), but I'm a bit cautious that changing the page that doesn't rank may have an affect on the page that does rank! Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Jaybeamer2 -
Noindex child pages (whose content is included on parent pages)?
I'm sorry if there have been questions close to this before... I've using WordPress less like a blogging platform and more like a CMS for years now... For content management purposes we organize a lot of content around Parent/Child page (and custom-post-type) relationships; the Child pages are included as tabbed content on the Parent page. Should I be noindexing these child pages, since their content is already on the site, in full, on their Parent pages (ie. duplicate content)? Or does it not matter, since the crawlers may not go to all of the tabbed content? None of the pages have shown up in Moz's "High Priority Issues" as duplicate content but it still seems like I'm making the Parent pages suffer needlessly... Anything obvious I'm not taking into consideration? By the by, this is my first post here @ Moz, which I'm loving; this site and the forums are such a great resource! Anyways, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | rsigg0 -
Will "internal 301s" have any effect on page rank or the way in which an SE see's our site interlinking?
We've been forced (for scalability) to completely restructure our website in terms of setting out a hierarchy. For example - the old structure : country / city / city area Where we had about 3500 nicely interlinked pages for relevant things like taxis, hotels, apartments etc in that city : We needed to change the structure to be : country / region / area / city / cityarea So as patr of the change we put in place lots of 301s for the permanent movement of pages to the new structure and then we tried to actually change the physical on-page links too. Unfortunately we have left a good 600 or 700 links that point to the old pages, but are picked up by the 301 redirect on page, so we're slowly going through them to ensure the links go to the new location directly (not via the 301). So my question is (sorry for long waffle) : Whilst it must surely be "best practice" for all on-page links to go directly to the 'right' page, are we harming our own interlinking and even 'page rank' by being tardy in working through them manually? Thanks for any help anyone can give.
On-Page Optimization | | TinkyWinky0 -
Duplicate Content from on Competitor's site?
I've recently discovered large blocks of content on a competitors site that has been copy and pasted from a client's site. From what I know, this will only hurt the competitor and not my client since my guy was the original. Is this true? Is there any risk to my client? Should we take action? Dino
On-Page Optimization | | Dino640