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.
Case Sensitive URLs, Duplicate Content & Link Rel Canonical
-
I have a site where URLs are case sensitive. In some cases the lowercase URL is being indexed and in others the mixed case URL is being indexed. This is leading to duplicate content issues on the site.
The site is using link rel canonical to specify a preferred URL in some cases however there is no consistency whether the URLs are lowercase or mixed case. On some pages the link rel canonical tag points to the lowercase URL, on others it points to the mixed case URL.
Ideally I'd like to update all link rel canonical tags and internal links throughout the site to use the lowercase URL however I'm apprehensive!
My question is as follows:
If I where to specify the lowercase URL across the site in addition to updating internal links to use lowercase URLs, could this have a negative impact where the mixed case URL is the one currently indexed?
Hope this makes sense!
Dave
-
Thanks Hutch and Ryan, great answers and exactly what I need. Appreciate it!
-
In addition to using rel=canonical for the lowercase version of your URLs you should also consider implementing redirection from uppercase to lowercase. A regex expert should be able to write the redirect script you'll need to add to your .htaccess file in order to change upper to lowercase. Cheers!
-
While you might see a small down tick in the beginning as Google indexes and updates, overall you should not suffer any long term negative effects from standardizing your URI structure.
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
-
Switching from HTTP to HTTPS: 301 redirect or keep both & rel canonical?
Hey Mozzers, I'll be moving several sites from HTTP to HTTPS in the coming weeks (same brand, multiple ccTLDs). We'll start on a low traffic site and test it for 2-4 weeks to see the impact before rolling out across all 8 sites. Ideally, I'd like to simply 301 redirect the HTTP version page to the HTTPS version of the page (to get that potential SEO rankings boost). However, I'm concerned about the potential drop in rankings, links and traffic. I'm thinking of alternative ways and so instead of the 301 redirect approach, I would keep both sites live and accessible, and then add rel canonical on the HTTPS pages to point towards HTTP so that Google keeps the current pages/ links/ indexed as they are today (in this case, HTTPS is more UX than for SEO). Has anyone tried the rel canonical approach, and if so, what were the results? Do you recommend it? Also, for those who have implemented HTTPS, how long did it take for Google to index those pages over the older HTTP pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Steven_Macdonald0 -
Removing duplicate content
Due to URL changes and parameters on our ecommerce sites, we have a massive amount of duplicate pages indexed by google, sometimes up to 5 duplicate pages with different URLs. 1. We've instituted canonical tags site wide. 2. We are using the parameters function in Webmaster Tools. 3. We are using 301 redirects on all of the obsolete URLs 4. I have had many of the pages fetched so that Google can see and index the 301s and canonicals. 5. I created HTML sitemaps with the duplicate URLs, and had Google fetch and index the sitemap so that the dupes would get crawled and deindexed. None of these seems to be terribly effective. Google is indexing pages with parameters in spite of the parameter (clicksource) being called out in GWT. Pages with obsolete URLs are indexed in spite of them having 301 redirects. Google also appears to be ignoring many of our canonical tags as well, despite the pages being identical. Any ideas on how to clean up the mess?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Internal links and URL shortners
Hi guys, what are your thoughts using bit.ly links as internal links on blog posts of a website? Some posts have 4/5 bit.ly links going to other pages of our website (noindexed pages). I have nofollowed them so no seo value is lost, also the links are going to noindexed pages so no need to pass seo value directly. However what are your thoughts on how Google will see internal links which have essential become re-direct links? They are bit.ly links going to result pages basically. Am I also to assume the tracking for internal links would also be better using google analytics functionality? is bit.ly accurate for tracking clicks? Any advice much appreciated, I just wanted to double check this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Partial duplicate content and canonical tags
Hi - I am rebuilding a consumer website, and each product page will contain a unique product image, and a sentence or two about the product (and we tend to use a lot of the same words in different ways across products). I'd like to have a tabbed area below the product info that talks about the overall product line, and this content would be duplicate across all the product pages (a "Why use our products" type of thing). I'd have this duplicate content also living on its own URL's so they can be found alone in the SERP's. Question is, do I need to add the canonical tag to this page, since there's partial duplicate content on the product pages? And if I did that, would my product pages go un-indexed?? I understand how to handle completely duplicated content, it's the partial duplicate that I'm having difficulty figuring out.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
Tabs and duplicate content?
We own this site http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/ and just a little concerned as I right clicked open in new tab on the tab content section and it went to a new page For example if you right click on the price tab and click open in new tab you will end up with the url
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson
http://www.discountstickerprinting.co.uk/#tabThree Does this mean that our content is being duplicated onto another page? If so what should I do?0 -
Set up a rel canonical
I have a question. I was wondering, if it was possible to set up a rel canonical. When I can't access the non canonical pages? For example, my site as at www.site.com , but the non cannocail is at site.com is their any way to set thet up without actually edting it at site.com ? Thanks for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterRota0 -
How to Remove Joomla Canonical and Duplicate Page Content
I've attempted to follow advice from the Q&A section. Currently on the site www.cherrycreekspine.com, I've edited the .htaccess file to help with 301s - all pages redirect to www.cherrycreekspine.com. Secondly, I'd added the canonical statement in the header of the web pages. I have cut the Duplicate Page Content in half ... now I have a remaining 40 pages to fix up. This is my practice site to try and understand what SEOmoz can do for me. I've looked at some of your videos on Youtube ... I feel like I'm scrambling around to the Q&A and the internet to understand this product. I'm reading the beginners guide.... any other resources would be helpful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deskstudio0 -
How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?
SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky0