Solving duplicate content errors for what is effectively the same page.

[jcarter]

Hello,
   I am trying out your SEOMOZ and I quite like it. I've managed to remove most of the errors on my site however I'm not sure how to get round this last one.

If you look at my errors you will see most of them revolve around things like this:

http://www.containerpadlocks.co.uk/categories/32/dead-locks
http://www.containerpadlocks.co.uk/categories/32/dead-locks?PageSize=9999

These are essentially the same pages because the category for Dead Locks does not contain enough products to view over more than one resulting in the fact that when I say 'View all products' on my webpage, the results are the same. This functionality works with categories with more than the 20 per page limit.

My question is, should I be either:

Removing the link to 'show all products' (which adds the PageSize query string value) if no more products will be shown. Or putting a no-index meta tag on the page? Or some other action entirely?

Looking forward to your reply and you showing how effective Pro is.

Many Thanks,
James Carter

[KeriMorgret]

Hi James,

Did Saibose answer your questions, or do you still have some questions remaining? I hope you're still enjoying your Pro membership, and let us know if we can help with anything!

[saibose]

James, I think that you can afford to do some apache level mod_rewrite so that you can mask your URLs with better looking keyword optimized URLs. mod_rewrite on apache is something your LAMP (linux, Apache MYsql,PHP) programmer would be aware of.

Programs and ecommerce cart programmers normally use easy to code names, but at the end it takes a lot of pain to rename all the categories and product names to something meaningful.

I had a similar problem and I got a mod rewrite done since htaccess modifications for 301 redirections and URL masking would put stress on the server and can slow your page load time.

[jcarter]

Thanks for your reply.

I see - I shall remove the 'Show All Products' link for categories with less than the page size of products.

What could I change the URL too? At the moment I am using /category/id/ as I need to indicate whether the ID is for a Category (in which case show the category page) or a Product (show the product page). At the moment I am using /category/ and /products/ Is there a better format to use bearing in mind I have to have data in the URL describing if the URL is for a category or product.

[saibose]

James,

The easiest way is to get rid of the 9999 at the last of the URL. If you can, add a rel=canonical tag for all such pages. That should normally work.

If the problem is rampant, you may want to remove the "show all products" option from pages that do not have more products to showcase. I would also suggest using a mod rewrite on apache to write better URLs for the same. Category33 sounds a bit weird to me. It could be named more SEO friendly.

If you want to get more information on rel=canonical implementation here is a link to help.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394