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.
Mod Rewrite / .htaccess avoid duplicate content
-
I have been searching and testing for hours but cannot find a solution. I am able to get a URL to display with out the file exntension.
i.e domain.com/file instead of domain.com/file.php
The problem is both versions of the URL above work, therefore a duplicate content issue. How can I force the URL with the file extension not to resolve and give a 404 error? Or just redirect to the non extension URL?
IF it helps here is my code.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1.php [L,QSA] -
Hi Erik,
No problem, glad I could help
To answer your question, No it doesn't matter which you use because the end result will be re-written to remove the file extension and add a forward slash at the end.
For consistency I would suggest having it without the .php inside your content though. If nothing else it would save you the pain of having to remove .php from your content if you moved to a content management system in the future.
If you've got any other questions let me know, and I'll be happy to help.
Ben
-
Didnt say thanks before, so thank you. One question I did not think of. Should the internal linking of the site be to the file name with extension or no extension?
I think it should be without extension but just want to double check.
-
Hi Ben. I tried this code on another hosting account and it did worked. The first account was a VPS account from Godaddy. The second was a shared account from the same hosting company. Im not sure why it works on one and not on the other. I did see the mod_rewrite option enabled.
-
Just tried this on my development server and it worked fine:
RewriteBase / RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^test.local RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.).php\ HTTP RewriteRule (.).php$ $1 [R=301]
remove index RewriteRule (.*)index$ $1 [R=301]
remove slash if not directory RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$ RewriteRule (.)/ $1 [R=301] # add .php to access file, but don't redirect RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$RewriteRule (.) $1.php [L]
The dev URL is test.local so you would want to change this to www.yourdomain.co.ukI had a page called about.php if I entered http://test.local/about.php or http://test.local/about it would show http://test.local/about in the address bar
-
Hi Ben. Thanks for your help but this does not work for some reason. Im testing it on an old site I have that is html and I just replaced php for html but both URL's still resolves.
-
Good answer Ben.
My main site is my own CMS, that I built 10 years ago, so after I added a lot of things to the .htaccess file and it became too large, I just moved the handling inside the control program, that only looks up filed URLs when they are broken. This processing is fast, but if there was any degradation, it only affects the broken URLs.
Speaking of broken URLs, I was getting a few 400 return codes and it seems the webserver handles those, so you have no chance to handle it in .htaccess. So the wat to handle that is with a 400 handler - that on cpanel sites just needs a 400.shtml file, that you can customize.
- you get a 400 response if you request a URL with a % symbol on the end, and some other site did that, thanks very much, and then google decided it would be a great thing to index.
-
Try using this instead:
<code>RewriteBase /</code>
<code># remove .php; use THE_REQUEST to prevent infinite loops
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ (.).php\ HTTP
RewriteRule (.).php$ $1 [R=301]remove index
RewriteRule (.*)index$ $1 [R=301]
remove slash if not directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /$
RewriteRule (.*)/ $1 [R=301]add .php to access file, but don't redirect
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]</code>
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
-
Duplicate Content and Subdirectories
Hi there and thank you in advance for your help! I'm seeking guidance on how to structure a resources directory (white papers, webinars, etc.) while avoiding duplicate content penalties. If you go to /resources on our site, there is filter function. If you filter for webinars, the URL becomes /resources/?type=webinar We didn't want that dynamic URL to be the primary URL for webinars, so we created a new page with the URL /resources/webinar that lists all of our webinars and includes a featured webinar up top. However, the same webinar titles now appear on the /resources page and the /resources/webinar page. Will that cause duplicate content issues? P.S. Not sure if it matters, but we also changed the URLs for the individual resource pages to include the resource type. For example, one of our webinar URLs is /resources/webinar/forecasting-your-revenue Thank you!
Technical SEO | | SAIM_Marketing0 -
How does Google view duplicate photo content?
Now that we can search by image on Google and see every site that is using the same photo, I assume that Google is going to use this as a signal for ranking as well. Is that already happening? I ask because I have sold many photos over the years with first-use only rights, where I retain the copyright. So I have photos on my site that I own the copyright for that are on other sites (and were there first). I am not sure if I should make an effort to remove these photos from my site or if I can wait another couple years.
Technical SEO | | Lina5000 -
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 -
Is duplicate content ok if its on LinkedIn?
Hey everyone, I am doing a duplicate content check using copyscape, and realized we have used a ton of the same content on LinkedIn as our website. Should we change the LinkedIn company page to be original? Or does it matter? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | jhinchcliffe0 -
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 -
Location Based Content / Googlebot
Our website has local content specialized to specific cities and states. The url structure of this content is as follows: www.root.com/seattle www.root.com/washington When a user comes to a page, we are auto-detecting their IP and sending them directly to the relevant location based page - much the way that Yelp does. Unfortunately, what appears to be occurring is that Google comes in to our site from one of its data centers such as San Jose and is being routed to the San Jose page. When a user does a search for relevant keywords, in the SERPS they are being sent to the location pages that it appears that bots are coming in from. If we turn off the auto geo, we think that Google might crawl our site better, but users would then be show less relevant content on landing. What's the win/win situation here? Also - we also appear to have some odd location/destination pages ranking high in the SERPS. In other words, locations that don't appear to be from one of Google's data center. No idea why this might be happening. Suggestions?
Technical SEO | | Allstar0 -
Block Quotes and Citations for duplicate content
I've been reading about the proper use for block quotes and citations lately, and wanted to see if I was interpreting it the right way. This is what I read: http://www.pitstopmedia.com/sem/blockquote-cite-q-tags-seo So basically my question is, if I wanted to reference Amazon or another stores product reviews, could I use the block quote and citation tags around their content so it doesn't look like duplicate content? I think it would be great for my visitors, but also to the source as I am giving them credit. It would also be a good source to link to on my products pages, as I am not competing with the manufacturer for sales. I could also do this for product information right from the manufacturer. I want to do this for a contact lens site. I'd like to use Acuvue's reviews from their website, as well as some of their product descriptions. Of course I have my own user reviews and content for each product on my website, but I think some official copy could do well. Would this be the best method? Is this how Rottentomatoes.com does it? On every movie page they have 2-3 sentences from 50 or so reviews, and not much unique content of their own. Cheers, Vinnie
Technical SEO | | vforvinnie1 -
Are recipes excluded from duplicate content?
Does anyone know how recipes are treated by search engines? For example, I know press releases are expected to have lots of duplicates out there so they aren't penalized. Does anyone know if recipes are treated the same way. For example, if you Google "three cheese beef pasta shells" you get the first two results with identical content.
Technical SEO | | RiseSEO0