Duplicate Content From My Own Site?!
-
When I ran the SEO Moz report it says that I have a ton of duplicate content.
The first one I looked at was my home page.
All of the above 3 have varying internal links, page authority, and link root domains. Only the first has any external links.
All of the others only seem to have 1 other duplicate page. It's a difference between the www and the non-www version.
I have a verified acct for www.kisswedding.com in google webmaster tools. The non-www version is in there too but has not been verified.
Under settings for the verified account (www.kisswedding.com), "Don't set a preferred domain" is checked off. Is that my mistake. And if so, which should I select? The www version or the non-www version?
Thanks!
-
Hi Ryan
I'm really sorry, but could you tell me what rule(s) to add to my htaccess file. I've been to my host (bluehost) but they don't know. Nice eh!?
I'd really appreciate it. And SO sorry!
-
I think I just had a major Duh! moment. Instead of linking back to index.html could I have been linking back to / all this time?
YES! Once you decide upon a correct URL structure for your website, you should always link directly to the appropriate URL.
On your site, you have chosen http://www.kisswedding.com/ to represent your home page. 100% of your links to the home page should use that URL. Any non-www links and /index.html links should be changed to this format.
Also, any signatures you use and content on other sites which you have control over should be updated to the proper format. Facebook, twitter, articles you published on other sites, etc. should all be updated.
-
omg.
I think I just had a major Duh! moment. Instead of linking back to index.html could I have been linking back to / all this time?
And thank you for confirming. Much appreciated. It all seems logical and it's all stuff I thought needed to happen - but was hoping didn't.
-
Your understanding is correct. The most important item is #3.
You asked how do you know the www version because is getting more links
Well, I was taking your word for it. In your original question you stated "Only the first has any external links."
Since you asked I just checked and actually all 3 URLs have external links, but the www version has by far the most.
With respect to the index.html file, it does not have to exist but that is the way your site is currently set up. Either way, it is ok. Simply 301 redirect the /index.html page to the / page.
What you need to understand is that while on your site the /index.html page is the same as the / page, it is not necessarily that way on every site. Additionally while on your site the www and non-www version of a URL is the same page, it is not necessarily that way on every site. For this reason Google will treat each of these pages separately. It will appear to Google that you are duplicating content. Also, your link juice will be divided. A properly configured 301 redirect will resolve these issues.
-
Thank you Maurizio!!! Just what I needed to know!
-
Thank you so much Ryan.
You answered a lot of the questions I was contemplating. Can you confirm I've understood your suggestions?
1. Verify the non-www version in GWT
2. Set preferred domain to the www version because that's getting more links (how do you know that btw?).
3. Set up 301 redirects in my htaccess file.
4. You've recommended that i set my home page as http://www.kisswedding.com VERSUS http://kisswedding.com/index.html or http://kisswedding.com
--- question about this last one. Isn't the index.html always going to exist because if I link back to my site within my own site I use the index.html extension? In fact, all my links are like that - I don't include my entire site url when i'm linking from one page to another on the site.
-
Hi Susan.
I agree with Maurizio and will offer a few more details.
It is important for each web page on your site to only be accessible from a single URL. It is up to you to decide which URL you prefer, then ensure all other URLs are removed or redirected to your chosen URL.
With respect to www or non-www, it does not make any difference but is rather your choice. In this case, since you already have links to the www version and not the non-www version, I would recommend choosing the www version and sticking with it.
The most important change you need to make is on your site. You need to 301 redirect all non-www URLs to their www equivalent. If you are unsure how to make this change and have managed hosting (most small sites do) then contact your host and they can easily make the change. Once the change has been made, test it! First go to your non-www home page and make sure you are redirected. Next, go to any of your inner pages, remove the "www" from the URL and make sure you are redirected to the same page but with the "www" added to the URL.
For Google WMT, you need to verify the site first. You should not have to upload any new file or change any code, but simply click through the options and the site will likely verify. Next, choose the preferred domain as the "www" version. If you wish to be very thorough, you can log into Bing Webmaster Tools and perform the same action. Once your 301 redirect is in place, the search engines would automatically make the change anyway, but it will likely take a month for all the pages of your site to be adjusted.
For the index.html, I would recommend 301 redirecting that URL to your http://www.kisswedding.com/ url.
Lastly, please review all links on your site and ensure they all use the "www" prefix. Include any signatures, social pages (facebook, twitter, etc).
-
Hi
i think that is not different from wwww and without wwww but you must decide in the google webmaster tools.
and i think that you can rediret (301 permanent) with htaccess to show only one site online.
example if you decide to have http://www.kisswedding.com/ when somebody digit a url without wwww ( http://kisswedding.com) you can redirect to wwww.
So you can avoid a duplicate content
Ciao
Maurizio
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
-
Curious, anyone ever had over half of their indexed links drop on an e-commerce site?
In a year went from around 300k indexed pages to around >100k according to GWT. Could this be duplicate content issue, lost links, spam, aged links or all of the above? either way an audit is in order. Thanks! Chris
Reporting & Analytics | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Google Web Master Tools show that my site has been crawled, but search results show old title tags, ect.
Does the index report reflect what will be displayed on Google results? Google seems to be indexing my site every Sunday...
Reporting & Analytics | | 928shopper0 -
Tracking Clicks on a Global Header Across Multiple Sites
Hey All, A particular client has multiple websites and we're planning on implementing a global header across 15+ sites. I've been looking for a way to track the clicks on this global header across all sites (that is that they are summed up), what's the best way to go about this if I am using Google Analytics (I know Adobe site catalyst could do this no problem with some advanced tweaking), any ideas? I could do the general click tracking route and tag every link but that will only help me if I do that for each site (that being said, if the global header for all sites pulls from a single HTML, then tagging it would technically count all the clicks from all the sites, the only caveat being that I'd have to pick which Google analytics profile I'd want to track the header with). Thoughts? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | EvansHunt0 -
How can you tell if Google has already assessed a penalty against your site for spammy links?
Is there any way to tell for sure if there is a penalty? My client has a ton of low quality back links, and I think they are in danger of a Penguin penalty. Any way to know? The links are there for a business reason.... their clients mention them in the footer, with a backlink. It is not a link scheme. but folks are generally not clicking on a footer link, and so there is a pro/con of leaving it as it. Any way, to diagnose whether a Penguin penalty has already hit?
Reporting & Analytics | | DianeDP2 -
Site operator result anomaly
"Site:" search for site:http://www.mycity4kids.com/Bangalore/activity-based-approach is showing 76 results.I am using SERPS Redux to collect all the indexed pages, but when I re-checked indexed status of these pages using "site operator" google showed that these pages are not indexed. What is the possible explanation for this? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | prsntsnh0 -
Question about cannonical URLs for a site redesign
Hello folks, I've redesigned a site completely and I ended up changing their CMS to wordpress as well. So their URLs which mostly ended in .html and folder organization have been thrown completely out the window with wordpress' '/' format. I'm just wondering what the best way is to approach retaining all the site's previous "link juice". What should I be doing here? How do I make sure their organic rankings don't fall? (They've left their previous SEO firm so they can't help me out on this). Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | seonubblet0 -
Time until duplicate penalty is lifted?
Hello, I recently discovered that half of the pages on my site, about 3,500 were not being indexed or were indexing very very slow and with a heavy weight on them. I discovered the problem in the "HTML Suggestions" within Google's Webmaster Tools. An example of my main issue. All 3 of these URL were showing 200 Status OK in Google. www.getrightmusic.com/mixtape/post/ludacris_1_21_gigawatts_back_to_the_first_time www.getrightmusic.com/mixtape/post/ludacris_1_21_gigawatts_back_to_the_first_time/ www.getrightmusic.com/mixtape/ludacris_1_21_gigawatts_back_to_the_first_time I added some code to the .htaccess in order to remove the trailing slashes across the board. I also properly set up my 404 redirects, which were not properly set up by my developer (when the site "relaunched" 6 months ago 😞 ) I then added the Canonical link rel tags on the site posts/entries. I'm hoping I followed all the correct steps in fixing the issue and now, I guess, I just have to wait until the penalty gets lifted? I'm also not %100 certain that I have been penalized. I'm just assuming based on the SERP ceiling I feel and the super slow or lack of indexing my content. Any insight, help or comments would be super helpful. Thank you. Jesse
Reporting & Analytics | | getrightmusic0 -
New Google Analytics Site Speed tool and excel
Hello, I was wondering if there is a good tool or method to pull the new Google Analytics Site Speed data into excel and use this document to track site speeds on a weekly basis for multiple clients? Any good articles or how-to's would be awesome!
Reporting & Analytics | | Hakkasan0