Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Multiple URLs for the same page

    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.

    Multiple URLs for the same page

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    5
    6
    9562
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • WebMarketingandDesign
      WebMarketingandDesign last edited by

      I am working with a client and recently discovered that they have several URLs that go to the same page.

      http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx
      http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx
      http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF
      http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FS
      http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=FF
      http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=ffhttp://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=MShttp://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=
      http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF#
      http://www.maps.com/FunFacts
      http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?.nav=FF

      I am afraid this is happening all over the site. So, my question is:

      Is this hurting the SEO and how?

      If so what is the best way to go about fixing this problem?

      Thanks for your help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EGOL
        EGOL last edited by

        Prob not a good idea to post client URLs.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • WebMarketingandDesign
          WebMarketingandDesign last edited by

          Hey, thanks guys for the great feedback!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret last edited by

            Yes, it is hurting the SEO. For more information than you might ever wanted to know about this, see the comprehensive blog post that Dr. Pete (an SEOmoz associate) posted last night at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world. That should be a good starting point to understand why you don't want this happening, and how to start to fix it. The comments touch on case sensitivity as well, even though he didn't include that in the post itself.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • sesertin
              sesertin last edited by

              Hello,

              This is seriously hurting your seo. The best way to get it over to implement canonical links in the head section of each page, so that it will tell google which page to display in the serps. You should choose the all lovercase letter one with no .aspx ending.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • SL_SEM
                SL_SEM last edited by

                Yes this hurts SEO. Mostly in that search engines rank pages based on the URL as a the URL is the only unique identifier they have for a given page.

                This means link popularity is split amongst the URLs and the same page is competing with its self to rank so Google usually picks one and ignores the others, and then you lose all of the link juice for links to the others.

                So with that said there are multiple ways to fix this. The most useful one is to setup 301 redirects for every option and redirect the user to the one you want to use. This way even if an outside source links to one of the variations google will go through that link, hit the redirect, and see the final URL and use that for ranking. Going the 301 route also keeps your stats programs much cleaner as you won't see stats for various versions of the pages.

                The hard part with 301s is catching all variations of a URL.

                With that said you might have a 301 in place, but then have parameters passed to the URL often. This is where the rel=canonical tag comes in handy.

                rel=canonical is a tag you can place in a page that tells anyone who cares (search bots mostly) that if you see this page at a URL other than the canonical URL you need to treat it as the same page as the canonical URL (that is a simplification, but works for the most part).

                So, get 301's in place, and then in your template for each page get a rel=canonical tag setup with the base URL so you are taken care of on both fronts...

                This can be rough on huge sites, but there is usually a programmatic way to do this to catch a good portion of your pages.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Inevo

                  Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?

                  Hi, everybody In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag.. What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
                  0
                • Hall.Michael

                  How to setup multiple pages in Google Search?

                  How to setup multiple pages in Google Search? I have seen sites that are arranged in google like : Website in Google
                                 About us.        Contact us
                                 Services.         Etc.. Kindly review screenshot. Is this can achieved by Yoast Plugin? X9vMMTw.png

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hall.Michael
                  0
                • MBASydney

                  Date of page first indexed or age of a page?

                  Hi does anyone know any ways, tools to find when a page was first indexed/cached by Google? I remember a while back, around 2009 i had a firefox plugin which could check this, and gave you a exact date. Maybe this has changed since. I don't remember the plugin. Or any recommendations on finding the age of a page (not domain) for a website? This is for competitor research not my own website. Cheers, Paul

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney
                  0
                • Travis-W

                  Multiple 301 Redirects for the Same Page

                  Hi Mozzers, What happens if I have a trail of 301 redirects for the same page? For example,
                  SiteA.com/10 --> SiteA.com/11 --> SiteA.com/13 --> SiteA.com/14 I know I lose a little bit of link juice by 301 redirecting.
                  The question is, would the link juice look like this for the example above? 100% --> 90% --> 81% -->72.9%
                  Or just 100% -----------------------------------------> 90% Does this link juice refer to juice from inbound links or links between internal pages on my site? Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
                  0
                • HD_Leona

                  Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search

                  Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos.  When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed.  The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such:  domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results.  This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can  I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent:  * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos?  I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona
                  0
                • Visually

                  Are there any negative effects to using a 301 redirect from a page to another internal page?

                  For example, from http://www.dog.com/toys to http://www.dog.com/chew-toys. In my situation, the main purpose of the 301 redirect is to replace the page with a new internal page that has a better optimized URL. This will be executed across multiple pages (about 20). None of these pages hold any search rankings but do carry a decent amount of page authority.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually
                  0
                • Peter264

                  NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                  Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
                  0
                • AndreVanKets

                  Is it safe to redirect multiple URLs to a single URL?

                  Hi, I have an old Wordress website with about 300-400 original pages of content on it. All relating to my company's industry: travel in Africa. It's a legitimate site with travel stories, photos, advice etc. Nothing spammy about. No adverts on it. No affiliates. The site hasn't been updated for a couple of years and we no longer have a need for it. Many of the stories on it are quite out of date. The site has built up a modest Mozrank value over the last 5 years, and has a few hundreds organically achieved inbound links. Recently I set up a swanky new branded website on ExpressionEngine on a new domain. My intention is to: Shut down the old site Focus all attention on building up content on the new website Ask the people linking to the old site to my new site instead (I wonder how many will actually do so...) Where possible, setup a 301 redirect from pages on the old site to their closest match on the new site Setup a 301 redirect from the old site's home page to new site's homepage Sounds good, right? But there is one issue I need some advice on... The old site has about 100 pages that do not have a good match on the new site. These pages are outdated or inferior quality, so it doesn't really make sense to rewrite them and put them on the new site. I call these my "black sheep pages". So... for these "black sheep pages" should I (A) redirect the urls to the new site's homepage (B) redirect the urls the old site's home page (which in turn, redirects to the new site's homepage, or (C) not redirect the urls, and let them die a lonely 404 death? OPTION A: oldsite.com/page1.php -> newsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page2.php -> newsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page3.php -> newsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page4.php -> newsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page5.php -> newsite.com
                  oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION B: oldsite.com/page1.php -> oldsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page2.php -> oldsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page3.php -> oldsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page4.php -> oldsite.com
                  oldsite.com/page5.php -> oldsite.com
                  oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION 😄 oldsite.com/page1.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
                  oldsite.com/page2.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
                  oldsite.com/page3.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
                  oldsite.com/page4.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
                  oldsite.com/page5.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
                  oldsite.com -> newsite.com My intuition tells me that Option A would pass the most "link juice" to my new site, but I am concerned that it could also be seen by Google as a spammy redirect technique. What would you do? Help 😐

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndreVanKets
                  1

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.