Strange duplicate content issue
-
Hi there,
SEOmoz crawler has identified a set of duplicate content that we are struggling to resolve.
For example, the crawler picked up that this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/industry-insight/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career is a duplicate of this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career.
The latter page's content is the original and can be found in the CMS admin area whilst the former page is the duplicate and has no entry in the CMS. So we don't know where to begin if the "duplicate" page doesn't exist in the CMS.
The crawler states that this page www. creative-choices.co.uk/industry-insight/inside/creative-writing is the referrer page. Looking at it, only the original page's link is showing on the referrer page, so how did the crawler get to the duplicate page?
-
it could be any one out of the following 3 scenarios.
1: The page in question was moved at some point and since the CMS still accepts the old URL, when google re-visits the old URL it still finds it. So in this scenario it will find both the old URL and the new URL and index both.
2: google hasn't revisited the page for a long while but it is still in it's index, even though it would get a 301 by the CMS when it visits the page. Can be easily fixed by going to webmaster tools and ask it to remove it from the index.
3: there are still links to the old URL either on site or off site and since the CMS doesn't 301 the oid page it will index it again with a new URL.
4:the page still exists in the CMS because of some strange setting or equivalent in the CMS.
as mentioned before the easy fix is to use a robots.txt and deny access to the page and ask google to remove it from it's index. the better fix is to find the problem in the CMS and solve it. a midway fix could be to 301 it in the .htaccess or equvilent on an ISS server.
hope it helped
-
Thanks René,
I updated my earlier reply with a question that i think you missed.
The list isn't growing, which is a good thing but how is it possible for the crawler to pick up the duplicate page urls when the the referrer page has the correct urls?
-
I have come across this sort of issue a gazillion times + infinite.. almost all of our clients seem to have dub cont problems of one kind or another
but often it is different things that is the problem. But I'm afraid that I can't point you in the right direction, since I have no experience with your CMS. To be able to do that I would need to have access to the site itself. (since I don't know the CMS.) My advice would be to get a developer on the issue or to grab hold of the support for the CMS (if any.)
-
Hi René,
Thanks for your reply and suggestions. It could well be CMS remembering old urls as this list isn't growing. But is the crawler able to pickup the old urls when the referrer page has the correct urls?
We are on Expression Engine. Have you come across this sort of issue before?
-
Well it kinda have to be in the CMS, since it has 2 different paths.. But you could fix it by going to the .htaccess (if you have access and redirect it to the right URL and make a robots.txt and disallow access to the page.
if the page has been moved to a new location theres a good chance that the CMS is setup to remember the old URL and show the page. This is indeed a problem, but a potential problem with the CMS.
Go to webmaster tools and ask them to delete the dublicate from thier index.
You specific problem could originate from a ton of different problems and it is kinda har to fix without direct access to everything. What CMS is it your using?
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
-
I have duplicate content but // are causing them
I have 3 pages duplicated just by a / Example: https://intercallsystems.com/intercall-nurse-call-systems**//**
Technical SEO | | Renalynd
https://intercallsystems.com/intercall-nurse-call-systems**/** What would cause this?? And how would I fix it? Thanks! Rena0 -
Duplicate content question...
I have a high duplicate content issue on my website. However, I'm not sure how to handle or fix this issue. I have 2 different URLs landing to the same page content. http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/vegan/ and http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/raw-food/ .In this situation, I cannot redirect one URL to the other since in the future I will probably be adding additional posts to either the "vegan" tag or the "raw food tag". What is the solution in this case? Thank you
Technical SEO | | myfitstation0 -
Duplicate Page Content for sorted archives?
Experienced backend dev, but SEO newbie here 🙂 When SEOmoz crawls my site, I get notified of DPC errors on some list/archive sorted pages (appending ?sort=X to the url). The pages all have rel=canonical to the archive home. Some of the pages are shorter (have only one or two entries). Is there a way to resolve this error? Perhaps add rel=nofollow to the sorting menu? Or perhaps find a method that utilizes a non-link navigation method to sort / switch sorted pages? No issues with duplicate content are showing up on google webmaster tools. Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | jwondrusch0 -
Determining where duplicate content comes from...
I am getting duplicate content warnings on the SEOMOZ crawl. I don't know where the content is duplicated. Is there a site that will find duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | JML11790 -
Filter Tag Duplicate Content E-Commerce Issue
Hello, I just launched a new site for a client but am seeing some duplicate content issues in the campaign crawl. It has to do with the drill-down, filter "tags" that helps users find the product they are looking for. You can see them in the sidebar here: http://www.ssmd.com/shop/ In my crawl report this is what is showing up as duplicate content (attached image). How do I keep these widgets from generating duplicate content on the site? Also, not sure if it's important or not, but I am using Wordpress, WooCommerce and Yoast's SEO Tool. Any suggestions are appreciated! Screen%20Shot%202012-10-23%20at%202.56.00%20PM.png
Technical SEO | | kylehungate0 -
Is this considered Duplicate Content?
Good Morning, Just wondering if these pages are considered duplicate content? http://goo.gl/t9lkm http://goo.gl/mtfbf Can you please take a look and advise if it is considered duplicate and if so, what should i do to fix... Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
Duplicate content due to csref
Hi, When i go trough my page, i can see that alot of my csref codes result in duplicate content, when SeoMoz run their analysis of my pages. Off course i get important knowledge through my csref codes, but im quite uncertain of how much it effects my SEO-results. Does anyone have any insights in this? Should i be more cautios to use csref-codes or dosent it create problems that are big enough for me to worry about them.
Technical SEO | | Petersen110 -
Duplicate content
I have to sentences that I want to optimize to different pages for. sentence number one is travel to ibiza by boat sentence number to is travel to ibiza by ferry My question is, can I have the same content on both pages exept for the keywords or will Google treat that as duplicate content and punish me? And If yes, where goes the limit/border for duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | stlastla0