Duplicate Errors from Wordpress login redirects
-
I've some Duplicate issues showing up in Moz Analytics which are due to a Q&A plugin being used on a Wordpress website which prompts the user to login. There's a number of links looking like the one shown below, which lead to the login page:
www.website.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.website.com%question%2....
What's the best way to deal with this?
--
extra info:
-
this is only showing up in Moz Analytics. Google Webmaster Tools reports no duplicates.. I'm guessing this is maybe down to the 'redirect_to' parameter being effective in grouping the URLs for Googlebot.
-
currently the wplogin and consequent redirects are 'noindex, follow' - I cannot see where this is being generated from in wp-login.php to change this to nofollow (if this will solve it).
-
-
Yea I'd already blocked some duplicates from a BuddyPress issue, so I didn't want to just jump in and block straight away without some further investigation. Good to know that's the best solution to keep things clean. Cheers for answering Dan.
-
Greg
That's right, the best way is to block crawling with robots.txt - makes sense to keep crawling clean and efficient. If you're using Yoast you can edit robots.txt right in there, or you can do via FTP.
-
Thanks Dan, that's really helpful...
Webmaster Tools reports no crawl issues or anything strange and the crawled pages matches the site size. I've performed a Screaming Frog crawl with the suggested settings, and it IS seeing those redirected pages - 48 in total - which matches the number Moz Analytics is reporting.
The actual page these redirected URL's end up at is a CATCHA page - This is an unneeded layer of 'extra' security put in place by the hosting company after the spate of Wordpress hacks last year. (Cookie'd users who have recently passed the CATCHA would arrive at the Wordpress login page) As such, we don't have any control over the code on that page or anything.
So I guess that even though WMT isn't complaining about these duplicates, to keep things clean and tidy then blocking with robots.txt is the solution huh.
-
Greg
Generally if you're not seeing this in Webmaster Tools or Screaming Frog (have you tried a crawl there yet?) then it's probably not an issue. Crawl it with Screaming Frog, and if you maintain the default settings (honor robots.txt and don't follow nofollows) and set to Googlebot, this will be a pretty accurate representation of what Google is doing. If the pages don't pop up, you should be fine.
Also, check webmaster tools for "crawl stats" - on average, is Google crawling an abnormal amount of pages compared to the "normal" site size?
If it is a problem, you can always block them with robots.txt
-Dan
-
Always for Login and Logout pages use ( NOINDEX - NOFOLLOW ) so you will not face problems like this again.
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
-
Main menu duplication
I am working on a site that has just gone through a migration to Shopify at the very same time as Google did an update in October. So problems from day 1. All main menu categories have subsequently over the past 6 weeks fallen off a cliff. All aspects of the site have been reviewed in terms of technical, link profile and on-page, with the site in better shape than several ranking competitors. One issue that i'd like some feedback on is the main menu which has 4 iterations in the source. desktop desktop (sticky) mobile mobile (sticky - appears as a second desktop sticky but I assume for mobile) These items that are "duplicated" menus are the top level menu items only. The rest of the nested menu items are included within the last mobile menu option. So desktop menu in source doesn't include any of the sub-menu items, the mobile version carries all these there are 4 versions of the top level main menu items in source Should I be concerned? Considering we have significant issues should this be cleaned up?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Help with duplicate pages
Hi there, I have a client who's site I am currently reviewing prior to a SEO campaign. They still work with the development team who built the site (not my company). I have discovered 311 instances of duplicate content within the crawl report. The duplicate content appears to either be 1, 2, or 3 versions of the same pages but with differing URL's. Example: http://www.sitename.com http://sitename.com http://sitename.com/index.php And other pages follow a similar or same pattern. I suppose my question is mainly what could be causing this and how can I fix it? Or, is it something that will have to be fixed by the website developers? Thanks in advance Darren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODarren0 -
Is WordPress a Blog in the eyes of Google?
Hi, My online Shop is based on WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin. Now, I have met a SEO guy who told me that's bad in the eyes of Google: Because Google apparently sees my website as a blog and not as a E-Commerce site. Wow, this statement really confused my, since I am working so hard on content and good rankings. Any opinions on this would be appreciated. Best, Robin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal0 -
Canonical OR redirect
Hi, i've a site about sport which cover matches. for each match i've a page. last week there was a match between: T1 v T2 so a page was created: www.domain.com/match/T1vT2 - Page1 this week T2 host T1, so there's a new page www.domain.com/match/T2vT1 - Page2 each page has a unique content with Authorship, but the URL, Title, Description, H1 look very similar cause the only difference is T2 word before T1. though Page2 is available for a few days, on site links & sitemap, for the search query "T2 T1 match" Page1 appears on the SERP (high location). of course i want Page2 to be on SERP for the above query cause it's the relevant match. i even don't see Page2 anywhere on the SERP and i think it wasn't indexed. Questions: 1. do you think google see both pages as duplicated though the content is different? 2. is there a difference when you search for T1 vs T2 OR T2 vs T1 ? 3. should i redirect 301 Page1 to Page2? consider that all content for Page1 and the Authorship G+ will be lost. 4. should i make rel=canonical on Page1 to Page2? 5. should i let google sort it out? i know it's a long one, thanks for your patience. Thanks, Assaf
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stassaf0 -
301 Redirect and Webmaster Central
I've been working on removing canonical issues. My host is Apache. Is this the correct code for my htaccess? RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spkcp111
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^luckygemstones.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.luckygemstones.com/$1 [R=301,L] SECOND!!! I have two websites under Google's Webmaster Central; http://luckygemstones.com which gets NO 404 soft errors... AND http://www.luckygemstones.com which has 247 soft 404 errors... I think I should DELETE the http://luckygemstones.com site from Webmaster Central--the 301 redirect handles the"www" thing. Is this correct? I hate to hose things (even worse?) Help! Kathleen0 -
What Wordpress Update Services Should You Be Using on Your Wordpress Blog?
I have been told that pingomatic.com is all that you need however yesterday I went to a conference and others were recommending to have a good list of pinging services to cover all your bases Here are 4 that have been recommended: pingomatic technorati blogsearch.google.com feedburner Any others that should be included on this list? My goal is not to spam these ping lists however want to make sure my content is getting indexed quickly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
Duplicate WordPress Home Page Issue
I have an issue where I've created a site, (www.tntperformance805.com), using WordPress as a CMS. I enabled the option to use a static page as the home page, and created that page as /home. Well, now the issue that exists is that Google is indexing both www.tntperformance805.com, and www.tntperformance805.com/home/. I've already setup a 301 redirect, pointing /home/ to the main domain, and even have rel=canonical set up automatically, pointing every page to the www version of that particular page. However, Google Webmaster Tools is still reporting the pages as having duplicate page titles and descriptions. I've even had the page removed from Google's cache and index. I'm assuming Google is not considering the 301 redirect, even though it's setup properly. Should I add rel="canonical" href="http://www.tntperformance805.com" /> to the body of the /home/ post, to ensure that it is giving credit to the main domain? I am assuming the page is only redirecting to , as that's the www version, but I thought the 301 redirect would enforce that the search engines should give all credit to the main domain. Thanks in advance for the help everyone. I look forward to some insightful feedback. Best Regards, Matt Dimock
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | National-Positions0 -
Duplicate content - canonical vs link to original and Flash duplication
Here's the situation for the website in question: The company produces printed publications which go online as a page turning Flash version, and as a separate HTML version. To complicate matters, some of the articles from the publications get added to a separate news section of the website. We want to promote the news section of the site over the publications section. If we were to forget the Flash version completely, would you: a) add a canonical in the publication version pointing to the version in the news section? b) add a link in the footer of the publication version pointing to the version in the news section? c) both of the above? d) something else? What if we add the Flash version into the mix? As Flash still isn't as crawlable as HTML should we noindex them? Is HTML content duplicated in Flash as big an issue as HTML to HTML duplication?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford0