301 and joomla

[seoanalytics]

I was looking at the subpages of my website www.mywebsite.com/my-sub/page.html and i noticed that when I type mywebsite.com/my-sub/page.html  ( without the www.) in front it I get re-directed to the homepage.

Is that a known issue of joomla and does it mean that google cache both version of my site causing site wide duplicate content ?

Thank you,

[GeorgeAndrews]

The sub page (both versions). This other version you've just linked is also an issue. There are a number of posts out there about optimizing Joomla! Try this recent one on the YOUmoz blog: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/seo-your-joomla-website-in-11-super-easy-steps.

[seoanalytics]

Thank you but which page might be viewed as duplicate content , the homepage or the subpage ?

is there a way for me to know if it is viewed as duplicate content by google ?

One last thing :

I also noticed that on our website we have webpages like this one

http://www.mywebsite.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=37

that are still accessible even though our real page is ranked in google is :

www.mywebsite.com/mywidget.html

Is that an issue ?

Thank you,

[GeorgeAndrews]

If it's not a 301 (or 302), it might be viewed as duplicate content if the first page is already indexed.

[seoanalytics]

yes it does but what is the potential issue ?

[GeorgeAndrews]

If the redirect is a 301, Google will only treat the second page as the actual page with the content. So no. If it isn't a 301, then you do have a potential issue. Does that answer your question?

[seoanalytics]

Thanks George for your reply.

If it is not causing a duplicate content issue couldn't it be causing a SEO issue where google sees

www.mywebsite.com/my-sub/page.html  and mywebsite.com/my-sub/page.html as 2 different pages ?

Thank you,

[GeorgeAndrews]

It doesn't sound like you will have duplicate content problems because the redirect appears to be happening.

However, it would be best to 301 redirect to the www version of the sub page rather than always to your home page. This sounds like an issue with the .htaccess file and how it is written to redirect.

Here's a pretty good guide for getting 301 redirects and .htaccess working correctly for Joomla!:

http://www.hyde-design.co.uk/joomla-training/sef-joomla/urls-htaccess-redirects

The main piece being that you will want to use something similar to the following in your .htaccess for Joomla!:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^example.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,NC]

Your .htaccess appears to be doing the last two steps a little bit differently and this is sending those redirects to your home page instead of the www version of the sub page.