Linking to root domain or index page
-
While link building, should I link to index page of my website i.e www.mydomainname.com/index.html or should I link to root domain i.e www.mydomainname,com
Also I see duplicate title error for index page and root domain in error statistic. How can I get rid of this.
-
Hi Arti,
Generally, you want to link to your root domain. Many common website templates link to home as /index.html, but that really hasn't been necessary for years.
The easiest way to fix this would be to add a canonical tag in your homepage, which is the /index.html file. It would go in the section and look like this:
After you add this, when you look at your source code for your homepage, you should see this tag in there from whatever address you reached the page from.
There's a lot of information on duplicate content out there, and a lot of different ways to fix the same problem. Here's a good overview of the subject:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world
Best of luck with your SEO.
-
To me, that's not what your 404 page is for. I wouldn't recommend doing it. What happens if they typo something, or hit a bad link some other way? There's no message to tell them what happened and it creates a confusing user experience.
Better, in my opinion, to redirect the file individually
Arti, there's a good article on SEOmoz about redirects. Down the bottom, there are some how-to guides on how to do things like 301's. Just be careful of infinite loops if you're using apache.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-rewrites-and-301-redirects-how-does-it-all-work
-
Hi Anthony, Thanks for your reply. Does that mean that I should actually remove index.html from my website. Also please help me for 301 redirect. Rgds Arti
-
If you have wordpress you can add
<code>php header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: ".get_bloginfo('url')); exit(); ?></code>
<code>to your 404 page.</code>
-
Hi Arti,
You'll just need to create a 301 redirect from www.yoursite.com/index.html to www. yoursite.com. This will permanently eliminate the /index.html version (which is a duplicate page) and fix the duplicate content error.
After that, build links to www.yoursite.com.
Hope this help. If you need more info on how to do the 301 redirect just let me know.
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
-
Is this link opportunity worth pursuing? (Gated page)
Hi, While looking for link opportunities for my client in the shoe business, I came across a page of a running club's website that hosts discounts for members of the running club. To actually view the content of the page you must be logged in. When not logged in all you can see is the sign-up page and a message asking you to log in. Would this link be at all useful in terms of SEO or would crawlers not be able to view the page content as well? Thanks!
Link Building | | RickyShockley0 -
Internal Links - How to Increase them, Categories not being considered as Internal Links
Hi All: As per my understanding, Internal Equity Passing Links is a metric defining PA. Now my website has around 65 internal links while few of my competitors have more than 180 links. I am unable to understand how to increase the internal links passing equity on my website, because I can see, more number of links on my website than my competitors but opensiteexplorer does not show that. I am really confused. Please help out if anyone knows something about this issue. Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | sidjain4you0 -
Advice on buying a domain name for a valuable link
There is an expired blog which scores well for a search term I'm interested in. I'd like to know if people think it's a good idea to buy it to get a link essentially? Also, if I buy the domain and the content is wiped, does anyone have any tips on what I should do in regards to content to maintain the domains value? I don't generally look to buy domains for links but on this occasion it could be worth the effort and expense.
Link Building | | benners0 -
Text link to root in footer template
Hey Mozers, My first post here, I look forward to contributing what I learn and collecting knowledge branches (github joke) from you all. How valuable is a text link in the footer template to your home page (root)? My guess would be that it sends the on page link juice back to the home page. I don't believe this link should use keywords though (post penguin world). I realize we should have a pyramid architecture (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internal-linking-strategies-for-2012-and-beyond) but should every page link back to the homage page? What variables does this effect?
Link Building | | phdosf0 -
Whats the quickest way to measure inbound linkes to an inner page?
Greetings from 12 degrees C just stopped raining wetherby Uk 😉 Whilst there is a stack of tools out there capable of measuring inbound links to a site i need a tool that can target a specific page and inform me about the origin & volume. Put another way i need to know what tool could tell me how many links this page is getting:http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/office-to-let-leeds/ Thanks in advance,
Link Building | | Nightwing
David0 -
Are Links from an article site with a pr5 valuable when the article page itself has no PR
This article site has a PR5 my article with author bio here, has no PR http://goarticles.com/article/A-Guide-to-an-At-Home-Spray-on-Tan/6531453/ Is this type of link of any value ? Thank you in advance, Joe
Link Building | | jlane90 -
Two Links in one Article to One Domain
Will multiple links in a single article to one target domain (but seperate pages) count, or just the first link of that article? Thanks, Chris
Link Building | | Diderino0 -
Best way to create deep links - Building links to inner pages
I am looking for a cost effective way to rank 30 inner pages, which are all low competition, long tail keywords. What type of links are the best for this type of project, social bookmarks, article marketing, high pr links, etc.... Also who would be good to hire for this type of project?
Link Building | | newcitymoving0