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.
Mod Rewrite / .htaccess avoid duplicate content
-
I have been searching and testing for hours but cannot find a solution. I am able to get a URL to display with out the file exntension.
i.e domain.com/file instead of domain.com/file.php
The problem is both versions of the URL above work, therefore a duplicate content issue. How can I force the URL with the file extension not to resolve and give a 404 error? Or just redirect to the non extension URL?
IF it helps here is my code.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1.php [L,QSA] -
Hi Erik,
No problem, glad I could help
To answer your question, No it doesn't matter which you use because the end result will be re-written to remove the file extension and add a forward slash at the end.
For consistency I would suggest having it without the .php inside your content though. If nothing else it would save you the pain of having to remove .php from your content if you moved to a content management system in the future.
If you've got any other questions let me know, and I'll be happy to help.
Ben
-
Didnt say thanks before, so thank you. One question I did not think of. Should the internal linking of the site be to the file name with extension or no extension?
I think it should be without extension but just want to double check.
-
Hi Ben. I tried this code on another hosting account and it did worked. The first account was a VPS account from Godaddy. The second was a shared account from the same hosting company. Im not sure why it works on one and not on the other. I did see the mod_rewrite option enabled.
-
Just tried this on my development server and it worked fine:
RewriteBase / RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^test.local RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.).php\ HTTP RewriteRule (.).php$ $1 [R=301]
remove index RewriteRule (.*)index$ $1 [R=301]
remove slash if not directory RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$ RewriteRule (.)/ $1 [R=301] # add .php to access file, but don't redirect RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$RewriteRule (.) $1.php [L]
The dev URL is test.local so you would want to change this to www.yourdomain.co.ukI had a page called about.php if I entered http://test.local/about.php or http://test.local/about it would show http://test.local/about in the address bar
-
Hi Ben. Thanks for your help but this does not work for some reason. Im testing it on an old site I have that is html and I just replaced php for html but both URL's still resolves.
-
Good answer Ben.
My main site is my own CMS, that I built 10 years ago, so after I added a lot of things to the .htaccess file and it became too large, I just moved the handling inside the control program, that only looks up filed URLs when they are broken. This processing is fast, but if there was any degradation, it only affects the broken URLs.
Speaking of broken URLs, I was getting a few 400 return codes and it seems the webserver handles those, so you have no chance to handle it in .htaccess. So the wat to handle that is with a 400 handler - that on cpanel sites just needs a 400.shtml file, that you can customize.
- you get a 400 response if you request a URL with a % symbol on the end, and some other site did that, thanks very much, and then google decided it would be a great thing to index.
-
Try using this instead:
<code>RewriteBase /</code>
<code># remove .php; use THE_REQUEST to prevent infinite loops
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.).php\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.).php$ $1 [R=301]remove index
RewriteRule (.*)index$ $1 [R=301]
remove slash if not directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$
RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [R=301]add .php to access file, but don't redirect
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]</code>
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
-
How does Google view duplicate photo content?
Now that we can search by image on Google and see every site that is using the same photo, I assume that Google is going to use this as a signal for ranking as well. Is that already happening? I ask because I have sold many photos over the years with first-use only rights, where I retain the copyright. So I have photos on my site that I own the copyright for that are on other sites (and were there first). I am not sure if I should make an effort to remove these photos from my site or if I can wait another couple years.
Technical SEO | | Lina5000 -
Handling of Duplicate Content
I just recently signed and joined the moz.com system. During the initial report for our web site it shows we have lots of duplicate content. The web site is real estate based and we are loading IDX listings from other brokerages into our site. If though these listings look alike, they are not. Each has their own photos, description and addresses. So why are they appear as duplicates – I would assume that they are all too closely related. Lots for Sale primarily – and it looks like lazy agents have 4 or 5 lots and input the description the same. Unfortunately for us, part of the IDX agreement is that you cannot pick and choose which listings to load and you cannot change the content. You are either all in or you cannot use the system. How should one manage duplicate content like this? Or should we ignore it? Out of 1500+ listings on our web site it shows 40 of them are duplicates.
Technical SEO | | TIM_DOTCOM0 -
WordPress - How to stop both http:// and https:// pages being indexed?
Just published a static page 2 days ago on WordPress site but noticed that Google has indexed both http:// and https:// url's. Usually I only get http:// indexed though. Could anyone please explain why this may have happened and how I can fix? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Clicksjim1 -
Location Based Content / Googlebot
Our website has local content specialized to specific cities and states. The url structure of this content is as follows: www.root.com/seattle www.root.com/washington When a user comes to a page, we are auto-detecting their IP and sending them directly to the relevant location based page - much the way that Yelp does. Unfortunately, what appears to be occurring is that Google comes in to our site from one of its data centers such as San Jose and is being routed to the San Jose page. When a user does a search for relevant keywords, in the SERPS they are being sent to the location pages that it appears that bots are coming in from. If we turn off the auto geo, we think that Google might crawl our site better, but users would then be show less relevant content on landing. What's the win/win situation here? Also - we also appear to have some odd location/destination pages ranking high in the SERPS. In other words, locations that don't appear to be from one of Google's data center. No idea why this might be happening. Suggestions?
Technical SEO | | Allstar0 -
Duplicate Content and URL Capitalization
I have multiple URLs that SEOMoz is reporting as duplicate content. The reason is that there are characters in the URL that may, or may not, be capitalized depending on user input. A couple examples are: www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-rent www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-rent There are currently thousands of instances of this on the site. Is this something I should spend effort to try and resolve (may not be minor effort), or should I just ignore it and move on?
Technical SEO | | Jom0 -
Using video transcripts v captions and avoiding duplicate content?
Part 1: After editing a You Tube transcript, I typically re-upload as a caption file (with time codes)...for SEO does it matter whether you upload as a transcript v. captions? Is one better than the other? Part 2: If you upload a transcript (or caption) to YouTube, then post that video/transcript in your blog, wouldn't you get pinged for duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
Duplicate content and http and https
Within my Moz crawl report, I have a ton of duplicate content caused by identical pages due to identical pages of http and https URL's. For example: http://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations https://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations The strange thing is that 99% of these URL's are not sensitive in nature and do not require any security features. No credit card information, booking, or carts. The web developer cannot explain where these extra URL's came from or provide any further information. Advice or suggestions are welcome! How do I solve this issue? THANKS MOZZERS
Technical SEO | | hawkvt10 -
Are recipes excluded from duplicate content?
Does anyone know how recipes are treated by search engines? For example, I know press releases are expected to have lots of duplicates out there so they aren't penalized. Does anyone know if recipes are treated the same way. For example, if you Google "three cheese beef pasta shells" you get the first two results with identical content.
Technical SEO | | RiseSEO0