Htm vs. aspx page extensions & duplicate content
-
We have a client whose site is fairly new. There isn't much in the way of SEO results so far.
In their content management system they have implemented friendly URLs and changed the extensions from aspx to htm. Now the htm pages are all indexed in Google but when I run a campaign report in SEOmoz it shows that all pages are duplicated with there being both htm and aspx pages for each page.
Should we do 301 redirects from the aspx pages to the htm pages? Or would we be safe by removing the htm pages and letting Google reindex the site with the aspx page extensions?
Does Google have any kind of preference as to what the page extensions are as long as the URLs include keywords?
-
You really should leave the extension alone for this exact reason - when something gets borked - you will have issues. Making friendly URL's, but like John said, you don't need to alter the extension.
-
It sounds like the aspx pages are still being served? If so, you should 301 redirect them to the new friendly URLs with the htm extensions. Google doesn't care about which page extension you use.
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
-
Recurring events and duplicate content
Does anyone have tips on how to work in an event system to avoid duplicate content in regards to recurring events? How do I best utilize on-page optimization?
Technical SEO | | megan.helmer0 -
Purchasing duplicate content
Morning all, I have a client who is planning to expand their product range (online dictionary sites) to new markets and are considering the acquisition of data sets from low ranked competitors to supplement their own original data. They are quite large content sets and would mean a very high percentage of the site (hosted on a new sub domain) would be made up of duplicate content. Just to clarify, the competitor's content would stay online as well. I need to lay out the pros and cons of taking this approach so that they can move forward knowing the full facts. As I see it, this approach would mean forgoing ranking for most of the site and would need a heavy dose of original content as well as supplementing the data on page to build around the data. My main concern would be that launching with this level of duplicate data would end up damaging the authority of the site and subsequently the overall domain. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Technical SEO | | BackPack851 -
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 -
Magento Multistore and Duplicate Content
Hey all, I am currently optimizing a Magento Multistore running with two store views (one per language). Now when I switch from one language to another the urls shows: mydomain.de/.../examplepage.html?___store=german&___from_store=english The same page can also be reached by just entering mydomain.de/.../examplepage.html The question is: Does Google consider this as Duplicate Content or it it nothing to worry about? Or should I just do a dynamic 301 redirect from the 1st version to the 2nd? I read about some hacks posted in diferent magento forums but as I am working for a customer I want to avoid hacks. Also setting "Add Store Code to Urls" didn't help.
Technical SEO | | dominator0 -
Localized domains and duplicate content
Hey guys, In my company we are launching a new website and there's an issue it's been bothering me for a while. I'm sure you guys can help me out. I already have a website, let's say ABC.com I'm preparing a localized version of that website for the uk so we'll launch ABC.co.uk Basically the websites are going to be exactly the same with the difference of the homepage. They have a slightly different proposition. Using GeoIP I will redirect the UK traffic to ABC.co.uk and the rest of the traffic will still visit .com website. May google penalize this? The site itself it will be almost the same but the homepage. This may count as duplicate content even if I'm geo-targeting different regions so they will never overlap. Thanks in advance for you advice
Technical SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Content on top-level-domain vs. content on subpage
Hello Seomoz community, I just built a new website, mainly for a single affiliate programm and it ranks really well at google. Unfortunately the merchant doesn’t like the name of my domain, that’s why I was thrown out of the affiliate program. So suppose the merchant is a computer monitor manufacturer and his name is “Digit”. The name of my domain is something like monitorsdigital.com at the moment. (It’s just an example, I don’t own this URL). The structure of my website is: 1 homepage with much content on it + a blog. The last 5 blog entries are displayed on the homepage. Because I got kicked out of the affiliate program I want to permanent redirect monitorsdigital.com to another domain. But what should the new website look like? I have two possibilities: Copy the whole monitorsdigital website to a new domain, called something like supermonitors.com. Integrate the monitorsdigital website into my existing website about different monitor manufacturers. E.g.: allmonitors.com/digit-monitors.html (that url is permitted by the merchant) What do you think is the better way? I just got the impression, that it seems to be a little easier to rank high with a top-level-domain (www.supermonitors.com) than with a subpage (www.allmonitors.com/digit-monitors.html). However the subpage can benefit from the domain authority, that was generated by other subpages. Thanks for your help and best regards MGMT
Technical SEO | | MGMT0 -
Duplicate content
I'm getting an error showing that two separate pages have duplicate content. The pages are: | Help System: Domain Registration Agreement - Registrar Register4Less, Inc. http://register4less.com/faq/cache/11.html 1 27 1 Help System: Domain Registration Agreement - Register4Less Reseller (Tucows) http://register4less.com/faq/cache/7.html | These are both registration agreements, one for us (Register4Less, Inc.) as the registrar, and one for Tucows as the registrar. The pages are largely the same, but are in fact different. Is there a way to flag these pages as not being duplicate content? Thanks, Doug.
Technical SEO | | R4L0 -
Avoiding duplicate content/same pages
hi I have been checking through all the Q and A but i i'm still not sure how you get http://www.domain.co.uk/index.html to be just http://www.domain.co.uk/? Do you add canonical to the index page to point to the page you prefer and then add a 301 redirect? thanks
Technical SEO | | challen0