Duplicate Home Page
-
Hi,
I have a question around best practise on duplicate home pages. The /index.aspx page is showing up as a top referrer in my analytics. I have the rel=canonical tag implemented for the www.mysite.com on both pages.
Do I need to 301 the /index.aspx to the mysite.com? I have a lot of links pointing to the /index.aspx (half of those are coming from the mysite.com).
Many thanks
Jon
-
Thanks Guys,
Great answers.
-
I'd be inclined to make the equivalent of a URL rewrite rule in the ASP equivalent of htaccess to only serve www.mysite.com. Sorry I don't know ASP so can't help with syntax there.
Then I would use canonical url to tell bots which page is actually the index.
Lastly I'd scan your site and ensure that all links on your site, which link to the home page have just a slash, as it's very likely there's a few of each:
This way all to the home page that crawlers see are just the canonical URL.
-
Hey Jon
A quick note about analytics - it will always report your homepage as /index.aspx etc. So, even if you have a mysite.com, www.mysite.com or www.mysite.com/index.aspx structure, GA will report the landing page as /index.aspx.
Therefore, I would choose the URL structure that you would prefer to keep and what you think looks best. 301 the other URL versions to your chosen domain to avoid duplicate content and to pass on all the link equity from those URLs. If you do redirect the /index.aspx version on your domain a 301 will pass on all the 'strength' so not a lot to worry about there.
When you're done, it's worth checking that all the links on your site link to the homepage in the same way, including your logo if applicable. Also update your XML sitemap and resubmit to Googe/Bing.
Hope this helps.
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
Hello Moz Quick question. Can I copy and paste a paragraph of text (100 words) from my main category page into my products without hurting SEO of the category page? The content on my category page is so good I don't want to take chances as this is what I will be ranking for. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | crocman0 -
Home page keyword in url
I have been looking into SEO for a few weeks now trying to perfect a homepage. Going through various sources on MOZ, and other examples out there on the internet, I keep seeing that you should have your keyword in the URL of the page. The homepage is the page most people want to rank the highest in google searches, however, you cannot put the keyword in the URL as most home page URLs are simply /. Should I actually make the home like this: www.example.com/key-word-example? I would imagine this would not be the normal for many users and would seem like it's not the home page.
On-Page Optimization | | Matthew_smart0 -
Duplicate Content, Same Company?
Hello Moz Community, I am doing work for a company and they have multiple locations. For example, examplenewyork.com, examplesanfrancisco.com, etc. They also have the same content on certain pages within each website. For example, examplenewyork.com/page-a has the same content as examplesanfrancisco.com/page-a Does this duplicate content negatively impact us? Or could we rank for each page within each location parameter (for example, people in new york search page-a would see our web page and people in san fran search page-a would see our web page)? I hope this is clear. Thanks, Cole
On-Page Optimization | | ColeLusby0 -
Can you canonical from one domain page to a different domain page
We are a boating site and have our main site with all it's products. We have an engine section within our main site. But we also have an outside domain, specific to a certain manufacturer of engines. So we want our customers to still find the engine information for this manufacturer within our main site, as well as find the manufacturer targeted engine site in the SERPS. My question is this: Can I canonical those pages within our main site to pages on the outside domain? Or does are canonicals to be used only within the same domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | tdawson090 -
Should I worry about duplicate titles on pages where there is paginated content?
LivingThere.com is a real estate search site and many of our content pages are "search result" - ish in that a page often provides all the listings that are available and this may go on for multiple pages. For example, this is a primary page about a building: http://livingthere.com/building/31308-Cocoa-Exchange Because of the number of listings, the listings paginate to a second page: http://livingthere.com/building/31308-Cocoa-Exchange?MListings_page=2 Both pages have the same Page Title. Is this a concern? If so is there a "best practice" for giving paginated content different titles? Thanks! Nate
On-Page Optimization | | nate1230 -
Title tags in duplicate pages
hi there, we have a new ecommerce platform which has just been deployed, and I've been asked to tidy up the onpage SEO. we have employed canonicals across the category and product pages and we now have a nice set of unique product pages my question is - do we need to create the title tags in all of the duplicate non-canonical pages eg www.mysite.com/niceproduct.html (canonical) www.mysite.com/acategory/niceproduct.html (duplicate) Can we leave the duplicate title tag empty and not worry about it, or should we put in a duplicate of the canonical title tag hope the question makes sense! thanks in advance for all help
On-Page Optimization | | k3nn3dy30 -
Duplicate Links
Hello, I am entering sitewide navigation that will go to primary seo pages. This is really for usability, not for link juice. I'm wondering if I should still link to these very important pages in my index page's content. Or if I should consider those navigation links strong enough. If I did link in the content, then I would have more than one link to the same page on my home page. Thanks Tyler
On-Page Optimization | | tylerfraser0 -
Too many on page links
Our home page (and 1400 of our other pages) have well over 100 links, going beyond the recommend amount. Our competitors have less on page links (to other pages on their site) and way more link popularity so we are trying to figure out the best solution for this without hurting our sites conversions and usbaility.
On-Page Optimization | | iAnalyst.com0