Pages with duplicate meta descriptions
-
We have around 17 pages have underscores in the URL. From the 17 pages, we have changed 3 pages URL for example if the url is test_sample_demo.html, we have changed as test-sample-demo.html
After the updates, we have made redirect as follows
Redirect 301 test_sample_demo.html test-sample-demo.html
Presently google webmaster tool shows as "Pages with duplicate meta descriptions" & "Pages with duplicate title tags" for changed pages
How to fix this. Please help us
-
Hi,
It sounds like the 301 isn't implemented correctly OR Google didn't yet crawl the old URLs after you implemented the redirect.
How long ago did you change the URLs? If it's only a few days ago I'd just wait for Google to crawl your old URLs again and detect the 301.
Hope it helps.
-
This is likely to be Google's auditing system (from within Google Search Console) errors and is (probably) not your fault. If pages which are redirecting are being flagged as having duplicate Meta descriptions, that is demonstrably and necessarily factually inaccurate. A page which redirects somewhere else **never serves its source code **to Google, users or anyone else (assuming that the redirect is global, of course). If the source code is never seen, Google should not be able to find any Meta description let alone a duplicate one.
In all likelihood Google is comparing the new URLs against cached versions of the old pages (instead of re-visiting the old addresses as live URLs like it should do). As such it believes there's duplicate Meta data. When it eventually bothers to _actually _re-crawl the old URLs - it will eventually work out its issues and fix itself. If you want to speed it along, Fetch and render the old URLs so that Google knows they are actually redirecting now. Following that, spam the 'mark as fixed' thing until it complies with your work.
If however you are exempting Google from those particular redirects (maybe via the Googlebot user-agent), then obviously it can't see the redirects and is still accessing the old page-versions. Make sure that Google follows 301 redirects in the same way that users are forced to.
Be sure to test the redirects manually using something like this chrome extension. Test that the redirects work. Set your user-agent to Googlebot, do a hard refresh to clear your cache - try the page again. Try using a VPN to access the redirects from servers in different locations (try the UK, somewhere in Europe, the USA). Sometimes redirects are 'conditional' and if Google is somehow slipping through the net, that's a problem for you. Never just accept "well someone told me it was coded like this so it must always apply". Test manually, work out the real truth
Hope that 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
-
Google keeps marking different pages as duplicates
My website has many pages like this: mywebsite/company1/valuation mywebsite/company2/valuation mywebsite/company3/valuation mywebsite/company4/valuation ... These pages describe the valuation of each company. These pages were never identical but initially, I included a few generic paragraphs like what is valuation, what is a valuation model, etc... in all the pages so some parts of these pages' content were identical. Google marked many of these pages as duplicated (in Google Search Console) so I modified the content of these pages: I removed those generic paragraphs and added other information that is unique to each company. As a result, these pages are extremely different from each other now and have little similarities. Although it has been more than 1 month since I made the modification, Google still marks the majority of these pages as duplicates, even though Google has already crawled their new modified version. I wonder whether there is anything else I can do in this situation? Thanks
Technical SEO | | TuanDo96270 -
Why are my Duplicated Pages not being updated?
I've recently changed a bunch of duplicated pages from our site. I did get a slightly minimized amount of duplicated pages, however, some of the pages that I've already fixed are still unfixed according to MOZ. Whenever I check the back-end of each of these pages, I see that they've already been changed and non of them are the same in terms of Meta Tag Title is concern. Can anyone provide any suggestions on what I should do to get a more accurate result? Is there a process that I'm missing?
Technical SEO | | ckroaster0 -
Magento CMS Page Meta Titles?
Hey All, I'm experiencing a bit of a problem with creating a custom, separate Meta Title for CMS pages in Magento 1.6.1.0. I know this can be added through _CMS => Page => Page Information => Page Title, _but this method presents issues, as a length of 70 characters is a little too long for breadcrumbs. I would like a way to add a second specific meta title field that overrides this first Page Title field_. _ I did find something that does this in Magento Connect for around $50.00USD, but this seems like something that should be easy and free to do. Any suggestions as to a workaround or alternative free plugin would be most welcome! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
Pageing page and seo meta tag questions
Hi if i am using paging in my website there is lots of product in my website now in paging total paging is 1000 pages now what title tag i need to add for every paging page or is there any good way we can tell search engine all page or same ?
Technical SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
Is there an easy solution for duplicate page content on a drupal CMS?
I have a drupal 7 site www.australiacounselling.com.au that has over 5000 crawl errors (!). The main problem - close to 3000 errors- is I have duplicate page content. When I create a page I can create a URL alias for the page that is SEO friendly, however every time I do this, it is registering there are 2 pages with the same content. Is there a module that you're aware of that I can have installed that would allow me to show what is the canonical page? My developers seemed stumped and have given up trying to find a solution, but I'm not convinced that it should be that hard. Any ideas from those familiar with drupal 7 would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | ClintonP0 -
Long Meta Descriptions
I want to create a template for Meta titles, descriptions and keywords on my website for old news and minor pages in order to get some long tail traffic from them. The only template I can think to use for the descriptions takes the first sentence of the news article (which often if above 160 characters). Since these are minor pages, how big of a problem is that? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
How can i resolve Duplicate Page Content?
Hello, I have created one campaign over SEOmoz tools for my website AutoDreams.it i have found 159 duplicate page content. My problem is that this web site is about car adsso it is easy to create pages with duplicate content and also Car ads are placed byregistered users. How can i resolve this problem? Regards Francesco
Technical SEO | | francesco870 -
Duplicate page content errors in SEOmoz
Hi everyone, we just launched this new site and I just ran it through SEOmoz and I got a bunch of duplicate page content errors. Here's one example -- it says these 3 are duplicate content: http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-black-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-camel-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-gray-3inch You'll see from the pages that the titles, images and small pieces of the copy are all unique -- but there is some copy that is the same (after all, these are pretty much the same shoe, just a different color). So, why am I getting this error and is there any best way to address? Thanks so much!
Technical SEO | | ketanmv
Ketan0