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.
Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page
-
Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension. so they indexed www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's www.samplepage.com/page.html How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension? I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!
-
Yeah I looked further into the URL removal, but I guess technically I did not meet the criteria....and honestly I am fearful other potential implications of removal....I guess I will just have to wait for the 301 to ick in. I just cant believe there is not a simple .htaccess code to cause all URL's to show the .html extension. I mean it is a simple thing to implement the reverse and have the extension dropped...I mean....good lord...
Thanks for all your help though Mike, I truly appreciate the efforts!
-
LAME! You may just want to let the 301 redirect you have in place take its course or remove the URL from Google's index since it was added by mistake anyway.
Mike
-
Nope. .....good lord....
-
Nope.
-
If that does not work, give this a whirl:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{3,4}
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html
-
Try:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]*[^./])$ /$1.html [R=301,L] -
That caused the same "500 Internal Server Error" .......
-
Try my code without all the other redirects, and see if it works. If it does, then add back the other redirects one by one until everything works.
-
Oh, and my site auditor is seeing it as a directory with a file in it??? Ugghhh....
-
Nope. Didn't work. I am seriously about to lose my mind with this....
-
Maybe give this a whirl:
If URL does not contain a period or end with a slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.|/$)
append .html to requested URL
RewriteRule (.*) /$1.html [L]
-
I get a server error when I do this? Sooo confused... Here is the htaccess changes I made. FYI...I have removed the code you told me to put in there temporarily so the site's not down. I attached the server error screenshot too...
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.htmlRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
You repeat this code a few times, maybe that's the problem? Pretty sure you only need it once:
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /The line:
RewriteEngine On
Also only needs to be included once in an htaccess file. You may want to remove all the other instances.
Try adding this code at the very top, after the first "RewriteEngine On":
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html -
Thanks Mike, you are awesome! I actually was thinking to do that, but I was concerned that it might have some larger implications?
I also just resubmitted a sitemap so hopefully that "might" speed up the crawl process...
Thanks again!
-
"I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began...."
It sounds like you accidently added this URL to the index. You can follow the procedure outlined below to request Google remove the specific URL from the index:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819
I checked your site's structure using Screaming Frog and it does not appear that you are linking to any non-.html versions. If I perform a scan using one of your non-.html pages, it appears that it only links to itself.
Since you have the 301 redirect in place, you can choose to wait it out and Google should correct things eventually; otherwise, requesting Google remove the URL is a faster... PERMANENT process.
Good luck.
Mike
-
No it's not a wordpress, it was created with Dreamweaver. I didn't make sample and sample.html same page, but google is treating it that way.... I have implemented the 301, so I guess I just have to wait for a crawl
-
Thank you very for your input! When I implement into my .htacces what you suggested I get a "Internet 500 Server Error" ? Maybe it would help if I list what I currently have in my .htaccess I had to redirect some old domains and did canonical redirects and default non .index....I hope this help, I am at my wit's end... I also attached a screenshot of the webmaster warning... THANKS!!!
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L]Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / -
Is this a wordpress based site ? What CMS are you using ? How were you able to get domain.com/sample and domain.com/sample.html be the same page ? Either way, canonical tag is the correct solution in this case. There's no need for a 301 and if you do 301 redirects, you are not really fixing the issue caused by your CMS System.
I would therefore strongly advise to use the canonical tag. That's the intended use of that tag.
-
A canonical tag won't physically redirect you when you visit the page, it just lets the search engines know which is the right page to index.
If you want to actually redirect using .htaccess, try using this code
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html
-
I tried the canonical and when I enter the url without the .html, it doesn't resolve to the url with the .html extension. I tried an .htaccess reirect...I am stumped, I can't get it to redirect automatically the the .html I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began....
-
Add a canonical tag to your header so that Google/Bing knows which version of your page they should be indexing.
You can also try looking into where the link to the non-html page is coming from. If it's an internal link, just change it so that Google doesn't continue to crawl it.
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
-
Page with metatag noindex is STILL being indexed?!
Hi Mozers, There are over 200 pages from our site that have a meta tag "noindex" but are STILL being indexed. What else can I do to remove them from the Index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
Directory with Duplicate content? what to do?
Moz keeps finding loads of pages with duplicate content on my website. The problem is its a directory page to different locations. E.g if we were a clothes shop we would be listing our locations: www.sitename.com/locations/london www.sitename.com/locations/rome www.sitename.com/locations/germany The content on these pages is all the same, except for an embedded google map that shows the location of the place. The problem is that google thinks all these pages are duplicated content. Should i set a canonical link on every single page saying that www.sitename.com/locations/london is the main page? I don't know if i can use canonical links because the page content isn't identical because of the embedded map. Help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nchlondon0 -
Duplicate Content through 'Gclid'
Hello, We've had the known problem of duplicate content through the gclid parameter caused by Google Adwords. As per Google's recommendation - we added the canonical tag to every page on our site so when the bot came to each page they would go 'Ah-ha, this is the original page'. We also added the paramter to the URL parameters in Google Wemaster Tools. However, now it seems as though a canonical is automatically been given to these newly created gclid pages; below https://www.google.com.au/search?espv=2&q=site%3Awww.mypetwarehouse.com.au+inurl%3Agclid&oq=site%3A&gs_l=serp.3.0.35i39l2j0i67l4j0i10j0i67j0j0i131.58677.61871.0.63823.11.8.3.0.0.0.208.930.0j3j2.5.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..8.3.419.nUJod6dYZmI Therefore these new pages are now being indexed, causing duplicate content. Does anyone have any idea about what to do in this situation? Thanks, Stephen.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyPetWarehouse0 -
Trailing Slashes for Magento CMS pages - 2 URLS - Duplicate content
Hello, Can anyone help me find a solution to Fixing and Creating Magento CMS pages to only use one URL and not two URLS? www.domain.com/testpage www.domain.com/testpage/ I found a previous article that applies to my issue, which is using htaccess to redirect request for pages in magento 301 redirect to slash URL from the non-slash URL. I dont understand the syntax fully in htaccess , but I used this code below. This code below fixed the CMS page redirection but caused issues on other pages, like all my categories and products with this error: "This webpage has a redirect loop ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" Assuming you're running at domain root. Change to working directory if needed. RewriteBase / # www check If you're running in a subdirectory, then you'll need to add that in to the redirected url (http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory/$1 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iamgreenminded
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] Trailing slash check Don't fix direct file links RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ $1/ [L,R=301] Finally, forward everything to your front-controller (index.php) RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .* index.php [QSA,L]0 -
Links from non-indexed pages
Whilst looking for link opportunities, I have noticed that the website has a few profiles from suppliers or accredited organisations. However, a search form is required to access these pages and when I type cache:"webpage.com" the page is showing up as non-indexed. These are good websites, not spammy directory sites, but is it worth trying to get Google to index the pages? If so, what is the best method to use?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maxweb0 -
[E-commerce] Duplicate content due to color variations (canonical/indexing)
Hello, We currently have a lot of color variations on multiple products with almost the same content. Even with our canonicals being set, Moz's crawling tool seems to flag them as duplicate content. What we have done so far: Choosing the best-selling color variation (our "master product") Adding a rel="canonical" to every variation (with our "master product" as the canonical URL) In my opinion, it should be enough to address this issue. However, being given the fact that it's flagged as duplicate by Moz, I was wondering if there is something else we should do? Should we add a "noindex,follow" to our child products and "index,follow" to our master product? (sounds to me like such a heavy change) Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EasyLounge0 -
Can too many "noindex" pages compared to "index" pages be a problem?
Hello, I have a question for you: our website virtualsheetmusic.com includes thousands of product pages, and due to Panda penalties in the past, we have no-indexed most of the product pages hoping in a sort of recovery (not yet seen though!). So, currently we have about 4,000 "index" page compared to about 80,000 "noindex" pages. Now, we plan to add additional 100,000 new product pages from a new publisher to offer our customers more music choice, and these new pages will still be marked as "noindex, follow". At the end of the integration process, we will end up having something like 180,000 "noindex, follow" pages compared to about 4,000 "index, follow" pages. Here is my question: can this huge discrepancy between 180,000 "noindex" pages and 4,000 "index" pages be a problem? Can this kind of scenario have or cause any negative effect on our current natural SEs profile? or is this something that doesn't actually matter? Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome. Thank you! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Duplicate Content on Press Release?
Hi, We recently held a charity night in store. And had a few local celebs turn up etc... We created a press release to send out to various media outlets, within the press release were hyperlinks to our site and links on certain keywords to specific brands on our site. My question is, should we be sending a different press release to each outlet to stop the duplicate content thing, or is sending the same release out to everyone ok? We will be sending approx 20 of these out, some going online and some not. So far had one local paper website, a massive football website and a local magazine site. All pretty much same content and a few pics. Any help, hints or tips on how to go about this if I am going to be sending out to a load of other sites/blogs? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0