How big of a problem is this? - link cannonicalization I think?
-
Hello! I'm new here. My moz Pro account is flagging my website for having 282 duplicate pages, which it is saying are critical issues. I looked at this and it seems like the problem is that many of my pages are being indexed like: www.joeborders.com and joeborders.com and oeborders.com/index. I think this is an issue with link cannonicalization...right? I contacted my website builder/host a while ago and they said they don't have a way to to link cannonicalization....is this a huge problem?...Is there some way to do it that I'm missing? Should i get a new website builder/host?
for reference, this is what my builder/host said when I asked them about it:
"Good question, at the moment we don't offer it, I will add it to our feature request list, as I think it would be a good idea. In a traditional hosting environment this would be using a htaccess file, since we are in ruby on rails environment we would need come up with a custom solution."
-
I'm using www.jigsy.com . It's pretty good, but there have been a few times when I've had to code my own html to get something to work
-
Lol. You're right. Sorry. I assumed you meant redirect through canonical links
-
Nice! This is exactly what the first part of my recommendation was.
-
Woot! I think I fixed this! Instead of using link cannonicalization I found out that I can to a site wide 301 redirect from the http:// version to the www. version. Does anybody think this is totally wrong? I researched in the Moz library for a while and I think this is an acceptable solution.
-
Thanks for the response Logan ^_^. I've read through the articles on Moz about how to use the cannonicalization tag, my problem is that I dont seem to have access to "joeborders.com" (without the www.) to be able to add the tag there. What do you think? ...as far as I know there is no way to do anything about this...unless I redirect the www. version to the other....but I think that would be detrimental to my google rankings.
-
Hi there,
There's two things that should be done to fix this:
The first is that www and non-www versions should not both be available, one version should redirect to the other version. It doesn't matter which you choose, but in your case, Google already has www indexed, so I'd go with that. This will take care of the first two examples of dupes (www.joeborders.com vs. joeborders.com).
The second is the canonical tag, assuming you go with the www version of your domain, your canonical tag would look like this: . This would take care of the /index issue.
You said this site was built using Ruby of Rails, that seems like overkill for a basic content site (unless there's more to it that I'm missing). You're probably overpaying for a solution that far too robust for what you need, so yes, you might consider searching for a new developer and hosting solution.
-
....I feel like this might seem like a dumb question. I've read about link cannonicalization in the Moz articles, but I don't know how to do anything about site wide cannonicalization ie http://joeborders.com ---->www.joeborders.com when I don't have access to http://joeborders.com.
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
-
Thousands of links coming from an iframe
We have an iframed calculator on one website (www.renewablesguide.co.uk) which has a text link to another of our websites (www.solarguide.co.uk) which is where the calculator originates. We allow other sites to embed the calculator which gives us the benefit of a followed link back to our site. However in the case of renewablesguide (which we own) we've added a tab to the calculator on every page which GWT shows up as 24 000 links from this site hitting the Solar Guide homepage. As the link is held within an iframe would this amount of links be seen as spammy?
Technical SEO | | holmesmedia0 -
Long title problem
I'm getting an incredible number of 4xx errors and long titles from a small website (northstarpad.com); over 13k 4xx errors and almost 20k "title element is too long". The number keeps climbing, but the site shouldn't have more than a couple hundred pages. When I look at the 4xx errors they are clearly being generated by some program since they have multiple and repeating keywords. Here's an example: | http://northstarpad.com/category/wedding-photographer-farmington-michigan/pet-photography/wedding-photography/pet-photography/wedding-photography/wedding-photography/wedding-photography/pet-photography/wedding-photography/wedding-photography/pet-photography/ | I looked at the ftp files and plugins and couldn't see anything that could cause it, but I'm a beginner so no surprise there. Any suggestions where to look or how to fix this?
Technical SEO | | dwerkema0 -
Do I need a link to my sitemap?
I have a very large sitemap. I submit it to both Google and Bing, but do I need a link to it? If someone went there it would probably lock their browser. Is there any danger of not having a link if I submit it to Google and Bing?
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Webmaster Tools Links To Your Site
I logged onto webmaster tools today for my site and the section 'Links to Your Site' is showing no data. Also if I search using link:babskibaby.com it only shows 1 link. My site had been showing 500+ links previously. Does anyone know why this is?
Technical SEO | | babski0 -
Page for Link Building
Hello guys, My question is about link building and reciprocal links. Since many directories request a reciprocal link, makes me wonder if is not better to create a unique page in the website only for this kind of links. What do you guys recommend? Thanks in advance, PP
Technical SEO | | PedroM0 -
How to control link flow on a webshop
I am looking for a best practice link structure for a webshop. Say you run a webshop where the front page should rank for 1-2 keywords and then there are 5-10 categories which are more popular and has a higher profit than the remaining 20-50 categories. Will it be wise to let the 20-50 categories link to the 5-10 more profitable categories if possible or should the structure just treat all the categories as equal and hence not let any link juice flow from the less profitable categories up to the more profitable categories. I hope the question is clear enough. Also if you could share any thoughts on how you structure your webshops it would be great. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | loevgaard0 -
Multiple redirects a problem?
When product is sold out I will 301 redirect to a category page if a similar product is not available, but now our web developer has changed all the url's of the category pages so I need to redirect them all to the new category pages but that means there are some products that are first being redirected to the no longer existent category and then being redirected again to the new category page. This seems like it might me be a problem having two 301 redirects so I wanted to find out for sure if it is. Unfortunately our system for redirecting pages is archaic so it will be difficult and time consuming to go back and redo all the redirects that are going to pages that no longer exist so I wanted to get some additional opinions before I do that.
Technical SEO | | KentH0 -
Problems with seomoz profile section
Is anybody else having problems adding or changing their profile on seomoz? I make the changes it comes up saving then logs me out?
Technical SEO | | francesco270