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.
301 redirect (www.domain.com/index to www.domain.com)
-
Hello,
Please let me know what are the exact right steps in order to get rid of the duplicate content issues related with:
www.domain.com/index.html same as www.domain.com without creating an infinite loop.
Do you have a step by step guide posted within seomoz including 301 redirect for non www to www for all urls and index.whatever to main domain name without going into a infinite loop ?
btw how to you spot the loop ? is it obvious like never ending refresh of the home page ?
thanks a lot !
-
Well, I would recommend you alter the internal links to just point to the new '/' default, but in the meantime...
I would have thought your code would have worked, but every time I try it my site falls over. It might work for you though. Give it a try but test it straight away
I'll see if I can get a different version working on my test site for you if not
-
seomoz tool is showing duplicate pages for those 3. Each of the version has at least 1 internal and even external links.
all 3 respond in the browser with the same layout/page
-
Hmm, maybe, I doubt the index.php is doing anything as if there's a index.html and index.php the .html takes precedence.
Check what's in the .php file, might be easier just to delete it.
-
Can I use a code like this ? (i've added one entry for index.php as it looks like the site has both an index.html and an index.php)
Barry Smith
Journeyman264 mozpoints
6 helpful answers
1 SEOmoz endorsed answers|
Helpful Answer | Barry Smith, Head of SEO at Gaming Media Marketing | about 2 hours ago |
Probably the simplest way to redirect the non-www to the www is to put this in your .htaccess file
RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.php
RewriteRule ^(.)index.php$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
Thanks mate !
More then helpful.
-
Yeah, if it doesn't work you'll probably be faced with a blank page or you may get a 500 server error or maybe a 310. It should be obvious pretty fast
-
how it will behave if the redirect is not correct ? It will be visible ? (like a never-ending refresh of the main page)
-
I agree with Barry, but watch out for that last snippet. I've got caught when hosting companies redirect on their side. So test before walking away for more coffee : )
-
The last part redirects index.html to /
There would only be a loop if you redirected / to index.html
99.9% sure this'll work for you
I'm using the exact code on a small site right now and it's working fine
-
is the last part safe ? as far as the infinite loop things that some are afraid of..
-
Probably the simplest way to redirect the non-www to the www is to put this in your .htaccess file
RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]For reference the .htaccess file goes in the root of your domain via whatever file transfer program you use and of course replace example.com with your domain
If you get stuck, 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
-
Should I redirect or add content, to 47 Pages?
We have an insurance agency website with 47 pages that have duplicate/low content warnings. What's the best way to handle this? I'm I right in thinking I have 2 options? Either add new content or redirect the page? Thanks in advance 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | laurentjb1 -
No index for http version of website
Hi, I've had a message from Google search console to say the sitemap for the http version of my site is tagged as no index. As the https version is indexed, do I need to change the http version to be indexed as well? Do I need to keep the http version of the site in search console alongside the https version, or should I remove it? Advice appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Robingoodlad0 -
301 Redirect to product page or category?
We manage an ecommerce website that sells health products. A few products have now been discontinued. I’m just wondering what would be the best practice in this case. Should we 301 redirect to a similar product or to a similar category page? ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!
On-Page Optimization | | odegi0 -
What is the right schema.org link for a web design / developer / mobile agency?
It seems strange that a group of web developers would make up an entire structured language to designate businesses by category and somehow forget to include companies like.... web developers. So I must be missing it, what is correct to use?
On-Page Optimization | | yeagerd0 -
State Abbreviations and/or Fully Spelled Out?
Should State names be abbreviated and/or fully spelled out in title tags, meta descriptions and body content? Does Google know that VT = Vermont?
On-Page Optimization | | lbohen0 -
Google cached snapshots and last indexed
My question is I noticed today that the snap shots of my main pages were outdated. About a month. Then I clicked on the "Learn More" link about cahced images and Google says "Google crawls the web and takes snapshots of each page. When you click Cached, you'll see the webpage as it looked when we last indexed it." I know this sounds really dumb, but does that really mean the last time Google indexed that page? So the changes I have made since then have not been taken yet?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
How long is too long for domain URL length?
I noticed one of the negatively correlated ranking factors was length of URL. I'm building a page from scratch, we are trying to rank for 'Minneapolis Fitness' and 'Minneapolis Massage'. Is www.minnnepolismassageandfitness.com just ridiculously long? Or does the exact match outweigh the penalty for URL length?
On-Page Optimization | | JesseCWalker2 -
My Domain Name - short vs relevant
I'm creating a website for my new web design company in Vancouver. I'm looking to target such keywords as "Web Design Vancouver", etc. I have another company with a hyphenated domain name which is terrible when I'm on the phone and my client asks me for my domain (hard to say, always spelling it out). Also I wanted to have a good snappy name for my new business so I found a 6 letter .com and matching .ca for my company. My question is: is it best to use a short domain name or is it better have my keywords in the domain name? eg. xyz.com vs xyzvancouverwebdesign.com Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment0