Duplicate Content Issue
-
Hi Everyone,
I ran into a problem I didn't know I had (Thanks to the seomoz tool) regarding duplicate content.
my site is oxford ms homes.net and when I built the site, the web developer used php to build it. After he was done I saw that the URL's looking like this "/blake_listings.php?page=0" and I wanted them like this "/blakes-listings"
He changed them with no problem and he did the same with all 300 pages or so that I have on the site. I just found using the crawl diagnostics tool that I have like 3,000 duplicate content issues.
Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL?
Thanks for any help you can give.
-
Thank you. Very helpful, Ryan.
-
Regex is an expression language which is very useful for replacements. It is used for building dynamic strings whether they be for redirects, rss feeds, etc. I know Regex is used on *nix servers but I am not familiar with IIS redirects.
The bottom line, if you can verbally share a pattern of how the URLs should be redirected on your site, an expression can be created to represent that pattern. Even if that pattern only applied to 10% of the 3000 duplicate URLs, it is preferable compared to creating 300 individual redirects.
-
Unfortunately i think there is a different URL for each. They are labeled by page=1,2,3,4,5,etc.
Also, Regex is the markup language used for ALL redirects? Just for my knowledge to learn more about them is why I ask?
-
Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL?
If many pages used the exact same format, a single expression can redirect many pages.Regex is the language used to perform redirects. You would need an expression written which says to truncate any page containing ".php?page=0" in the URL by redirecting it to the same URL without the ".php?page=0" ending.
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
-
To what extent is content considered unique or duplicate?
I work primarily on classifieds websites and an issue I consistently come across are two or more URLs which have the exact same ad count, due to site structure and the way everything is categorized. An example of such would be with these two pages: https://www.boatshop24.co.uk/motorboats/princess https://www.boatshop24.co.uk/boats-for-sale/princess/power These two have the exact same number of ads- would search engines mark these as duplicate content? Both have different meta descriptions, title tags etc. but essentially the MC is exactly the same. If they are, what would be the best course to remedy the problem? I'm skeptical about using canonical tags as I generally use them for exact duplicate pages.
Technical SEO | | Sayers0 -
Shopify Duplicate Content in products
Hello Moz Community, New to Moz and looking forward to beginning my journey towards SEO education and improving our clients' sites. Our client's website is a Shopify store. https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/ Our first Moz reports show 686 duplicate content issues. I will show the first 4 as examples. https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-eagle-teardrop-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-orca-silver-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/silver-oval-earrings https://spiritsofthewestcoast.com/collections/native-earrings-and-studs-in-silver-and-gold/products/haida-eagle-spirit-silver-earrings As you can see, URL titles are unique. But I know that the content in each of those products have very similar product descriptions but not exactly. But since they have been flagged as a site issue by Moz, I am guessing that the content is 95% duplicate. So can a rel=canonical be the right solution for this type of duplicate content? Or should I be considering adding new content to each of 686 products to drop below the 95% threshold? Or another solution that I may not be aware of. Thanks in advance for your assistance and expertise! Sean
Technical SEO | | TheUpdateCompany1 -
Duplicate content - working with CMS constraints
Hi, We use an industry-specific CMS and I'm struggling to figure out how we can fix duplicate content issues. Thankfully, the vendor has agreed to work on 301 vs 302 redirects. However, they aren't currently able to give us the ability to add rel=canonical tags to page headers (we've put it in their "suggestion box" which tends to take a long time, if ever, to materialize). My understanding is that the tag will not be recognized if it's in the body code, correct? (aka the part of the page we can edit from the CMS) Is there anything else I can do?
Technical SEO | | combska0 -
Duplicate content on charity website
Hi Mozers, We are working on a website for a UK charity – they are a hospice and have two distinct brands, one for their adult services and another for their children’s services. They currently have two different websites which have a large number of pages that contain identical text. We spoke with them and agreed that it would be better to combine the websites under one URL – that way a number of the duplicate pages could be reduced as they are relevant to both brands. What seamed like a good idea initially is beginning to not look so good now. We had planned to use CSS to load different style sheets for each brand – depending on the referring URL (adult / Child) the page would display the appropriate branding. This will will work well up to a point. What we can’t work out is how to style the page if it is the initial landing page – the brands are quite different and we need to get this right. It is not such an issue for the management type pages (board of trustees etc) as they govern both identities. The issue is the donation, fundraising pages – they need to be found, and we are concerned that users will be confused if one of those pages is the initial landing page and they are served the wrong brand. We have thought of making one page the main page and using rel canonical on the other one, but that will affect its ability to be found in the search engines. Really not sure what the best way to move forward would be, any suggestions / guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks Fraser .
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0 -
Duplicate Content Issues - Where to start???
Dear All I have recently joined a new company Just Go Holidays - www.justgoholidays.com I have used the SEO Moz tools (yesterday) to review the site and see that I have lots of duplicate content/pages and also lots of duplicate titles all of which I am looking to deal with. Lots of the duplicate pages appear to be surrounding, additional parameters that are used on our site to refine and or track various marketing campaigns. I have therefore been into Google Webmaster Tools and defined each of these parameters. I have also built a new XML sitemap and submitted that too. It looks as is we have two versions of the site, one being at www.justgoholidays.com and the other without the www It appears that there are no redirects from the latter to the former, do I need to use 301's here or is it ok to use canonicalisation instead? Any thoughts on an action plan to try to address these issues in the right order and the right way would be very gratefully received as I am feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. (we also use a CMS system that is not particularly friendly and I think I will have to go directly to the developers to make lots of the required changes which is sure to cost - therefore really don't want to get this wrong) All the best Matt
Technical SEO | | MattByrne0 -
Why are these two URLs showing in Moz as duplicate content?
Here is the first URL - http://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/FBPP0000012376.asp Here is the 2nd URL - http://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/flag-spreader.asp Granted I am new to this issue on this website, but what is Roger seeing that I'm not? A lot of our duplicate pages are just like this example.
Technical SEO | | Flaglady0 -
Rel=canonical overkill on duplicate content?
Our site has many different health centers - many of which contain duplicate content since there is topic crossover between health centers. I am using rel canonical to deal with this. My question is this: Is there a tipping point for duplicate content where Google might begin to penalize a site even if it has the rel canonical tags in place on cloned content? As an extreme example, a site could have 10 pieces of original content, but could then clone and organize this content in 5 different directories across the site each with a new url. This would ultimately result in the site having more "cloned" content than original content. Is this at all problematic even if the rel canonical is in place on all cloned content? Thanks in advance for any replies. Eric
Technical SEO | | Eric_Lifescript0 -
Is this considered Duplicate Content?
Good Morning, Just wondering if these pages are considered duplicate content? http://goo.gl/t9lkm http://goo.gl/mtfbf Can you please take a look and advise if it is considered duplicate and if so, what should i do to fix... Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850