Duplicate Homepage: www.mysite.com/ and www.mysite.com/default.aspx
-
Hi,
I have a question regarding our client's site, http://www.outsolve-hr.com/ on ASP.net.
Google has indexed both www.outsolve-hr.com/ and www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx creating a duplicate content issue. We have added
to the default.aspx page. Now, because www.outsolve-hr.com/ and www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx are the same page on the actual backend the code is on the http://www.outsolve-hr.com/ when I view the code from the page loaded in a brower. Is this a problem? Will Google penalize the site for having the rel=canonical on the actual homepage...the canonical url.We cannot do a 301 redirect from www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx to www.outsolve-hr.com/ because this causes an infinite loop because on the backend they are the same page.
So my question is two-fold:
-
Will Google penalize the site for having the rel=canonical on the actual homepage...the canonical url.
-
Is the rel="canonical" the best solution to fix the duplicate homepage issue on ASP.
And lastly, if Google has not indexed duplicate pages, such as https://www.outsolve-hr.com/DEFAULT.aspx, is it a problem that they exist?
Thanks in advance for your knowledge and assistance.
Amy
-
-
The basic steps outlined below should work. CAVEAT: I'm a linux/apache person I don't know the specific implementation details for a windows/.net environment (but I believe it IS do-able - hopefully someone else can verify or expand on that)
1) Copy the default index (default.aspx) to a new name (example: mydefault.aspx)
-
Make mydefault.aspx the directory index for the root directory
-
Modify the original default.aspx so that all it contains is a redirect to http://www.outsolve-hr.com/
4) NOW default.aspx can be 301'd safely
5) Don't ever build any links to "mydefault.aspx" or you'll just re-create the problem!
Existing links to default.aspx would then be resolved safely and it's highly unlikely new ones to mydefault.aspx will appear.
Probably worth looking into, since a 301 is more powerful - rel=canonical is viewed by some search engines as more of a "suggestion."
-
-
To all your questions - you did exactly the right thing. I run ASP.NET sites too so totally understand the problem.
I add a noindex to all https pages, FWIW.
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
-
Migrating website to new CMS and to https://
Hi, We are migrating an old website to a new one built in Wordpress soon. We also added an SSL to change to https:// Most of the url's stay the same. Can we just migrate from http to https on server level, and for the url's that do change just set a 301 redirect? Or are there other things we should take into account?
Technical SEO | | Mat_C0 -
My client is using a mobile template for their local pages and the Google search console is reporting thousands of duplicate titles/meta descriptions
So my client has 2000+ different store locations. Each location has the standard desktop location and my client opted for a corresponding mobile template for each location. Now the Google search console is reporting thousands of duplicate titles/meta descriptions. However this is only because the mobile template and desktop store pages are using the exact same title/meta description tag. Is Google penalizing my client for this? Would it be worth it to update the mobile template title/meta description tags?
Technical SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page
Is it better to use 301 redirects or canonical page? I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.
Technical SEO | | Nanook10 -
Duplicate pages on wordpress
I am doing SEO on a site which is running on WP. And it has all pages and categories duplicates on domain.com/site/ However, as it got crawled I saw that all domain.com/ pages have rel=canonical with main page tag (does it mean something?). Thing is I will fix permalinks structure and I think WP automatically redirects if it is changed from /?page_id= to /%category%/%postname%/ or /%postname%/ Isn't there something I miss? Second problems is a forum. After a crawl it found over 5k errors and over 5k warnings. Those are: Duplicate page content; Duplicate page title; Overly-Dynamic URLs; Missing Meta descr; Title Element too long. All those come from domain.com/forum/ (fortunately, there are no domain.com/site/forum duplicates). What could be an easy solution to this?
Technical SEO | | OVJ0 -
What is the best practice to seperate different locations and languages in an URL? At the moment the URL is www.abc.com/ch/de. Is there a better way to structure the URL from an SEO perspective?
I am looking for a solution for using a new URL structure without using www.abc.com**/ch/de** in the URL to deliver the right languages in specific countries where more than one language are spoken commonly. I am looking forward to your ideas!
Technical SEO | | eviom0 -
XXXXX21ZZZZZZ.com VS X21Z.com which is a better domain?
We are launching a new eCommerce business selling hair extensions, wigs and hair loss prevention products. Our business name will be LXXks21 Zorever, what will be a better domain name to use lXXks21foZZZer.com or the shorter 4 character domain name X**21Z.com **? Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply.
Technical SEO | | SiddhartJain0 -
Homepage not showing for searches
Hi Looking for a bit advice our client - www.financial-wise.co.uk We worked with this client on his old website www.mortgage-wise.co.uk we had him ranking for most local searches. The client then re-branded the full company and got another company in to do this, they did him new website www.financial-wise.co.uk, the company then launched the new domain with the old one still showing, some of the content was the same, including homepage. Anyway the issue im having now is, for certain searches im struggling to get them ranking again and for searches such as financial wise, its inner pages showing instead of the homepage? I have che checked and homepage is indexed, i have also re-written all the text on the homepage but still having some issue, its almost like the homepage has been penalised any help would be great?
Technical SEO | | rfksolutionsltd0 -
I have a site that has both http:// and https:// versions indexed, e.g. https://www.homepage.com/ and http://www.homepage.com/. How do I de-index the https// versions without losing the link juice that is going to the https://homepage.com/ pages?
I can't 301 https// to http:// since there are some form pages that need to be https:// The site has 20,000 + pages so individually 301ing each page would be a nightmare. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | fthead90