Duplicate Content

[EQ-Richie]

I have tried searching for an exact example of the issues I am seeing, but didn't come up with anything. I decided to post my own question so I can get a direct answer on what I am experiencing.

I recently took over a website and its' existing SEO practices with it. Upon placing the site on SEOmoz, I received many (LOTS) of duplicate content warnings. Pretty much, this is how the website is setup:

domain.com/keyword-is-here/

but it is also coming up as domain.com/keyword-is-here/index.htm

-

Should I setup a redirect so domain.com/keyword-is-here/index.htm points to domain.com/keyword-is-here.htm or should I just leave it alone since it's pointing to the same exact?

Any information on this questions is greatly appreciated in advance.

[EQ-Richie]

Technically the pages are the same - but using a 301 will point the search engine to just look at and rank the link "domains.com/keyword-is-here" versus the index.html that goes along with that keyword? Is this correct?

Thanks!

[jeffreytrull1]

I would 301 redirect the index.html page to the http://www.domain.com/keyword-is-here. There's no reason to have both pages if they're the exact same content.

This is sorta covered under the "SEO Best Practice" section from page I sent you to: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization (although I know it can be a little unclear)

This page also gives a good yet slightly different explanation that might be easier to follow. Scroll down to the "Canonical and Duplicate Versions of Content" section with the pink diamonds: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

[EQ-Richie]

So place  in the index.html under /keywords-is-here/ ?

Will this fix it from indexing the non www. version as well?

[jeffreytrull1]

Yes, you'll want to forward the "domain.com/keyword-is-here/index.htm" version to the "domain.com/keyword-is-here/" version.

Here's an explanation of what you're looking for: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization