Duplicate content reported on WMT for 301 redirected content
-
We had to 301 redirect a large number of URL's. Not Google WMT is telling me that we are having tons of duplicate page titles. When I looked into the specific URL's I realized that Google is listing an old URL's and the 301 redirected new URL as the source of the duplicate content.
I confirmed the 301 redirect by using a server header tool to check the correct implementation of the 301 redirect from the old to the new URL.
Question: Why is Google Webmaster Tool reporting duplicated content for these pages?
-
Yeah, I think you are right. I am glad I checked 301 on WMT just to make sure there are no issues with the 301 redirect.
Cheers, C
-
No problem! Basically Google will recrawl the old URLs and should find the 301 itself. Your issue should resolve all by itself, just give it a few weeks. When it finds the redirect, it should remove the old URL from the index.
-
Mihai and SpyderTrap,
The 301 redirects were implemented in mid May. Grate idea about using Google fetch to check redirect. I checked and the redirects are ok (301).I guess it's possible that Google finds the new URL's using our directory (with updated URL's) and also has the old URL in it's index - hence "apparent" duplicate content.
Thanks for the input,
Christian
-
Hey Christian,
The issue here might be that Google still has a cache of the old URL before the 301 redirect. In that case, you'll just need to wait until the Google data centers refresh the data.
Also, instead of using a server header tool, you could use the Webmaster Tools "Fetch as Google" option on the old URL, and click on the "Success" link to check how Googlebot retrieves the page (to make sure Googlebot sees the 301 header as well).
Cheers!
-
How long ago did you set up the 301 redirects?
It can take some time to show up in Google WMT's.
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 content in Shopify - subsequent pages in collections
Hello everyone! I hope an expert in this community can help me verify the canonical codes I'll add to our store is correct. Currently, in our Shopify store, the subsequent pages in the collections are not indexed by Google, however the canonical URL on these pages aren't pointing to the main collection page (page 1), e.g. The canonical URL of page 2, page 3 etc are used as canonical URLs instead of the first page of the collections. I have the canonical codes attached below, it would be much appreciated if an expert can urgently verify these codes are good to use and will solve the above issues? Thanks so much for your kind help in advance!! -----------------CODES BELOW--------------- <title><br /> {{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ycnetpro101
{% if page_description %} {% endif %} {% if current_page != 1 %} {% else %} {% endif %}
{% if template == 'collection' %}{% if collection %}
{% if current_page == 1 %} {% endif %}
{% if template == 'product' %}{% if product %} {% endif %}
{% if template == 'collection' %}{% if collection %} {% endif %}0 -
Shall we add engaging and useful FAQ content in all our pages or rather not because of duplication and reduction of unique content?
We are considering to add at the end of alll our 1500 product pages answers to the 9 most frequently asked questions. These questions and answers will be 90% identical for all our products and personalizing them more is not an option and not so necessary since most questions are related to the process of reserving the product. We are convinced this will increase engagement of users with the page, time on page and it will be genuinely useful for the visitor as most visitors will not visit the seperate FAQ page. Also it will add more related keywords/topics to the page.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
On the downside it will reduce the percentage of unique content per page and adds duplication. Any thoughts about wether in terms of google rankings we should go ahead and benefits in form of engagement may outweight downside of duplication of content?0 -
Please help - Duplicate Content
Hi, I am really struggling to understand why my site has a lot of duplicate content issues. It's flagging up as ridiculously high and I have no idea how to fix this, can anyone help me, please? Website is www.firstcapitol.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alix_SEO1 -
Duplicate content - how to diagnose duplicate content from another domain before publishing pages?
Hi, 🙂 My company is having new distributor contract, and we are starting to sell products on our own webshop. Bio-technology is an industry in question and over 1.000 products. Writing product description from scratch would take many hours. The plan is to re-write it. With permission from our contractors we will import their 'product description' on our webshop. But, I am concerned being penalies from Google for duplicate content. If we re-write it we should be fine i guess. But, how can we be sure? Is there any good tool for comparing only text (because i don't want to publish the pages to compare URLs)? What else should we be aware off beside checking 'product description' for duplicate content? Duplicate content is big issue for all of us, i hope this answers will be helpful for many of us. Keep it hard work and thank you very much for your answers, Cheers, Dusan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Domain forward or 301 redirect
My company recently acquired another company including their web presence. We are soon ending their website and will be either 301 redirecting their domain to our domain or pointing their domain to our nameservers. Their domain authority is only 25 while our domain authority is 32. Their domain was created in 1998 while ours was created in 1999. So to keep our domain authority up or enhance it, should we do a 301 redirect or a domain forward. And that is if there is any difference? Thanks Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | topsailislander0 -
Canonicalization interact with 301 redirects?
This is a interesting one I think. I have recently taken down some product list pages from our website www.towelsrus.co.uk. These have canonicalisation in place to deal with pages where a query string is generated depending on the search criteria. When I put a 301 redirect in place the target page redirects fine, however webmaster tools then errors with 404 on all canonicalised pages. Is this correct behaviour and how do we get over this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Duplicate content on sub-domains?
I have 2 subdamains intented for 2 different countries (Colombia and Venezuela) ve.domain.com and co.domain.com. The site it's an e-commerce with over a million products available so they have the same page with the same content on both sub-domains....the only differences are the prices a payment options. Does google take that as duplicate content? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniel.alvarez0 -
301 Redirect With A Message And Delay
Hello, I'd like to sell a site I own. I'd like the site to be redirected to the buyers site with a 301 redirect. But I'd like the viewer to be informed that the site was purchased by this company and they will be redirect in 5 seconds.I'd like for the redirect to be a complete 301 and pass as much linklove as possible. Are you familiar with how to do this? Thanks, Tyler
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser0