Home page canonical issues

[simon-145328]

Hi,

I've noticed I can access/view a client's site's home page using the following URL variations -

http://example.com/
http://example/index.html
http://www.example.com/
http://www.example.com/index.html

There's been no preference set in Google WMT but Google has indexed and features this URL - http://example.com/

However, just to complicate matters, the vast majority of external links point to the 'www' version.

Obviously i would like to tidy this up and have asked the client's web development company if they can place 301 redirects on the domains we no longer want to work - I received this reply but I'm not sure whether this does take care of the duplicate issue -

Understand what you're saying, but this shouldn't be an issue regarding SEO. Essentially all the domains listed are linking to the same index.html page hosted at 1 location

My question is, do i need to place 301 redirects on the domains we don't want to work and do i stick with the 'non www' version Google has indexed and try to change the external links so they point to the 'non www' version or go with the 'www' version and set this as the preferred domain in Google WMT?

My technical knowledge in this area is limited so any help would be most appreciated.

Regards,
Simon.

[simon-145328]

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question - I'm going to implement 301 redirects and put this issue to bed!

[AlanBleiweiss]

Canonical tags are only a bandaid and not the best practices solution as a single action.  Search engines require that multiple signal points all reaffirm and reinforce other signals.  While canonical tags can help, if a high volume of links (either from other sites or even from within the site itself) point to other versions, this can cause confusion within the multi-algorithm eco-system.

I have seen many sites that have linked to their home page using three different URL variations right within links in their own site so don't discount that concept.

[CleverPhD]

Hi Remus,

He was only talking about 1 domain as I read it so you may be confused.  The 301 is a stronger signal than a canonical, also, you do not want other versions of the same URL functioning as then they could be shared out and so you have links coming into different URLs for the same page.   The 301 redirect eliminates that possibility.

[zoicaremus]

Hi Simon, from their answer it looks like they did not understood the problem.

My oppinion is that you don't necessarily have to use 301, you could easily use canonicalization.

Here you got everything explained -> http://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization

Maybe you should give them this link also.

Essentially all the domains listed are linking to the same index.html page hosted at 1 location

"... when multiple pages have the same content but different URLs, links that are intended to go to the same page get split up among multiple URLs. This means that the popularity of the pages gets split up." and ..."Each of these URLs spreads out the value of inbound links to the homepage. "

So, it does not matter only were all the domains are linking too -> this is just a small part of the problem -> even more, links that are intended to go to the homepage -> they will be split up as a result.

[jesse-landry]

No problem Simon! This community is always happy to help!

I'm just one of many here. C'mon back there are tons of smart marketers here with awesome insights.

[simon-145328]

Thanks for the quick response Jesse, its great to receive your thoughts and that makes me feel much better about how to tackle the situation!

Cheers,
Simon.

[jesse-landry]

mmmm. ice creaaammmm...

[CleverPhD]

Ditto +1 with ice cream on top for what Jesse said.

[jesse-landry]

You need to pick one and 301 everything to it. It really doesn't matter if you go with the www version or the non-www version. That can be up to you or the client. But you need to explain to these web developers that they are absolutely incorrect and that it very much IS an SEO issue. A huge one in fact.

Explain to them that even though all of the listed URL variations are indeed drawing from the same source HTML file, Google doesn't know or care about that and will see each and every one of those variants as a duplicate site indexed separately. This leads to penalties.

Furthermore, your link juice gets spread between them all. So if you have a link built to domain.com and another link to www.domain.com, the authority is split between them and you're basically competing with yourself 4+ times.

301 redirects solve this and every single website in the history of ever does (or should be) doing this. Ask your web developers to pick a major/semi-major brand and try accessing the different versions of said brand. try www.nike.com and http://nike.com - ask them how that resolves...

Silly that they would say that, but this should give you the reasoning to convince them otherwise. And if they still say no... They should be doing what you ask seeing as how your client is paying them and all...

Good luck!