Duplicate Homepage In Google

[rfksolutionsltd]

Hi

Just found through my SEO dashboard, Google has two versions of the same homepage, the root page, plus the index.html page, causing duplicate content from both the pages.

what is the best option to ensure google only have 1 version of the homepage listed?

[Dr-Pete]

I'm not a big fan of doubling-up on canonicalization tactics, because there's no good way to tell what's working. The 301 is probably a tiny bit stronger (not much, in my experience), but the advantage of the canonical tag on the home-page is that one tag will sweep up any variants. If you 301 "index.html" to the root, and then someone comes along and uses the non-www version of your home-page or adds a tracking parameter ("index.html?track=1234"), etc., the 301 won't do anything - you'll have to create 301s for each situation. The canonical will prevent those problems, which are very common on home pages.

[Dr-Pete]

Correct - usually, it's all the same physical page (on the server), so you only need to put it in one place.

[rfksolutionsltd]

Hi

just found I have same issues on my own website. However bit confused how I would change this. When the website was developed they where php pages, we did a rewrite so these pages went to .html pages instead, see file below. However now with my website www.rfksolutions.co.uk and www.rfksolutions.co.uk/index.html seem to be duplicate?

see my current htaccess file

any ideas?

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^index.html$ index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^about-us.html$ about-us.php [L]
RewriteRule ^portfolio.html$ portfolio.php [L]
RewriteRule ^partners.html$ partners.php [L]
RewriteRule ^logo-design-portfolio.html$ logo-design-portfolio.php [L]
RewriteRule ^graphic-design-portfolio.html$ graphic-design-portfolio.php [L]
RewriteRule ^graphic-design-portfolio2.html$ graphic-design-portfolio2.php [L]
RewriteRule ^testimonials.html$ testimonials.php [L]
RewriteRule ^portfolio/([0-9a-zA-Z_-]+).html$ portfolio_details.php?&title=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^rfksolutions.co.uk$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.rfksolutions.co.uk$
RewriteRule ^index.php$ "http://www.rfksolutions.co.uk" [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^falkirkwebdesign.co.uk$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.falkirkwebdesign.co.uk$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http://www.rfksolutions.co.uk/$1" [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^falkirkwebdesigners.co.uk$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.falkirkwebdesigners.co.uk$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http://www.rfksolutions.co.uk/$1" [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^webdesignfalkirk.co.uk$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.webdesignfalkirk.co.uk$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http://www.rfksolutions.co.uk/$1" [R=301,L]

[DerekM88]

I am confused on when to use both 301 and rel=canonical at the same time and when to use each separately. I have received advice through other Q&As saying to use both for my homepage in this exact same scenario, but sometimes SEOs advise to use rel=canonical on every page to point to its same location.

If 301s pass along "most" of the link juice, then why use both? What's the disadvantage of just using a 301?

D

[SimonCullum]

Good job, 301's are usually the reliable & trusted solution. Canonical tags are really useful for other redirecting purposes such as similar content issues. All the best  

[rfksolutionsltd]

Hi

thanks for that, it was a 301 i was thinking about, that is what I would normally have done, if for instance an old page had some link juice I would 301 it to another page, but I hadnt done one for this reason

I have just setup a 301 now for the domain name

[SimonCullum]

Hi There

There are a couple of options;

1. 301 Redirect the index.html page to your root domain, e.g. http://example.com/index.html  301 redirected to http://example.com

2. Use a Canonical tag, pointing the index.html page to your root domain.

You'll find a really helpful Redirection Guide here on SEOmoz.

You can also find here on SEOmoz a useful guide to Canonical tags.

I'd almost always recommend for this particular scenario, opting for a 301 Redirect on the page index.html to your root domain.  Chances are (for these two pages) your inbound links will tend to mainly point to your root domain rather than the index.html page.

I hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[rfksolutionsltd]

thanks for your help, sorry just to confirm

if I wanted google to keep the www.mydomain.com instead of www.mydomain.com/index.html as the main homepage I would put the link rel= onto the index/html and put the www.mydomain.com in there?

[Prospector-Plastics]

Adding the canonical tag within your telling search engines which homepage to use - this seemed to work for us:

If you're having duplicate content throughout your site, I've read having your site admin do something with the htaccess file would do the trick.