Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Capitals in url creates duplicate content?

    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.

    Capitals in url creates duplicate content?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    11
    3117
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • CarlS
      CarlS last edited by

      Hey Guys,

      I had a quick look around however I couldn't find a specific answer to this.

      Currently, the SEOmoz tools come back and show a heap of duplicate content on my site. And there's a fair bit of it.

      However, a heap of those errors are relating to random capitals in the urls.

      for example.

      "www.website.com.au/Home/information/Stuff" is being treated as duplicate content of "www.website.com.au/home/information/stuff" (Note the difference in capitals).

      Anyone have any recommendations as to how to fix this server side(keeping in mind it's not practical or possible to fix all of these links) or to tell Google to ignore the capitalisation?

      Any help is greatly appreciated.

      LM.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • dimitreliasb
        dimitreliasb Subscriber @AlanMosley last edited by

        The IIS url-rewrite addon works great!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AlanMosley
          AlanMosley @nans last edited by

          From my memory Google does treat urls as case sensitive.

          Best to keep al urls as lower case.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • nans
            nans @AlanMosley last edited by

            Thanks for your reply Alan!

            Bing is irrelevant in Belgium 🙂 Maybe marketshare of 0,00005 or so 🙂

            When I look at the SEOMoz crawling reports I panic, but when I look at GWT, I'm happy... The difference is huge.

            So, no sure I will keep on using these reports..

            AlanMosley 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • AlanMosley
              AlanMosley @nans last edited by

              I don't know that Google does ignore it. anyhow Bing does not http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-multiple-canonical-formats

              nans 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • nans
                nans last edited by

                If Google ignores the mixed usage of capitals in URL's, then why is the SEOMoz reporting it? If it is irrelevant, why not leaving it out?? It takes quite some work to filter out the irrelevant stuff!

                AlanMosley 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • CarlS
                  CarlS @semshah143 last edited by

                  Thanks Semil - The same duplicates are not showing in Google Webmaster Tools, for instance SEOMoz is showing 639 duplicate page content and 646 duplicate page titles. Webmaster tools is 88 and 37 respectively.

                  Looking into the numbers in SEOmoz again (and they've risen since the original post) there's a huge number which fall under the capitalisation discussed but also some which seem to register as HTTPS and HTTP.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • CarlS
                    CarlS @AlanMosley last edited by

                    Thanks Alan - I'll get on this...

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • AlanMosley
                      AlanMosley last edited by

                      Yes its seen as too different urls

                      http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/reports/violation/the-page-contains-multiple-canonical-formats

                      If you are uisng a windows server (IIS), you can fix this easy by using the IIS url-rewrite addon. it had a rewite as lowercase preset

                      CarlS dimitreliasb 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • IanTheScot
                        IanTheScot last edited by

                        Google does count this as duplicate content. Semil is right. You want to have someone do url rewrites on the server side to 301 these to lowercase.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • semshah143
                          semshah143 last edited by

                          Hi LucasM,

                          Yes its possible by server side that you cant open a url with capital letters if you are using small letters.

                          But I dont think google will talke capitalisation in consideration.

                          Is it showing you in Google webmaster tool in duplicate titles and duplicate descriptions ?

                          If its showing then ask your coder to play with .htaccess to stop opening a url with different small - capital letter combination.

                          Thanks,

                          CarlS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • ycnetpro101

                            Duplicate content in Shopify - subsequent pages in collections

                            Hello everyone! I hope an expert in this community can help me verify the canonical codes I'll add to our store is correct. Currently, in our Shopify store, the subsequent pages in the collections are not indexed by Google, however the canonical URL on these pages aren't pointing to the main collection page (page 1), e.g. The canonical URL of page 2, page 3 etc are used as canonical URLs instead of the first page of the collections. I have the canonical codes attached below, it would be much appreciated if an expert can urgently verify these codes are good to use and will solve the above issues? Thanks so much for your kind help in advance!! -----------------CODES BELOW--------------- <title><br /> {{ page_title }}{% if current_tags %} – tagged "{{ current_tags | join: ', ' }}"{% endif %}{% if current_page != 1 %} – Page {{ current_page }}{% endif %}{% unless page_title contains shop.name %} – {{ shop.name }}{% endunless %}<br /></title>
                            {% if page_description %} {% endif %} {% if current_page != 1 %} {% else %} {% endif %}
                            {% if template == 'collection' %}{% if collection %}
                            {% if current_page == 1 %} {% endif %}
                            {% if template == 'product' %}{% if product %} {% endif %}
                            {% if template == 'collection' %}{% if collection %} {% endif %}

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ycnetpro101
                            0
                          • BeckyKey

                            SEM Rush & Duplicate content

                            Hi SEMRush is flagging these pages as having duplicate content, but we have rel = next etc implemented: https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott?page=2 Or is it being flagged as they're just really similar pages?

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
                            0
                          • McTaggart

                            Underscores, capitals, non ASCII characters in image URLs - does it matter?

                            I see this strangely formatted image URLs on websites time and again - is this an issue - I imagine it isn't best practice but does it make any difference to SEO? Thanks in advance, Luke

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
                            0
                          • chalet

                            Same content, different languages. Duplicate content issue? | international SEO

                            Hi, If the "content" is the same, but is written in different languages, will Google see the articles as duplicate content?
                            If google won't see it as duplicate content. What is the profit of implementing the alternate lang tag?Kind regards,Jeroen

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chalet
                            0
                          • jayoliverwright

                            Country Code Top Level Domains & Duplicate Content

                            Hi looking to launch in a new market, currently we have a .com.au domain which is geo-targeted to Australia. We want to launch in New Zealand which is ends with .co.nz If i duplicate the Australian based site completely on the new .co.nz domain name, would i face duplicate content issues from a SEO standpoint?
                            Even though it's on a completely separate country code. Or is it still advised tosetup hreflang tag across both of the domains? Cheers.

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
                            0
                          • Silkstream

                            Problems with ecommerce filters causing duplicate content.

                            We have an ecommerce website with 700 pages. Due to the implementation of filters, we are seeing upto 11,000 pages being indexed where the filter tag is apphended to the URL. This is causing duplicate content issues across the site. We tried adding "nofollow" to all the filters, we have also tried adding canonical tags, which it seems are being ignored. So how can we fix this? We are now toying with 2 other ideas to fix this issue; adding "no index" to all filtered pages making the filters uncrawble using javascript Has anyone else encountered this issue? If so what did you do to combat this and was it successful?

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Silkstream
                            0
                          • 360eight-SEO

                            News sites & Duplicate content

                            Hi SEOMoz I would like to know, in your opinion and according to 'industry' best practice, how do you get around duplicate content on a news site if all news sites buy their "news" from a central place in the world? Let me give you some more insight to what I am talking about. My client has a website that is purely focuses on news. Local news in one of the African Countries to be specific. Now, what we noticed the past few months is that the site is not ranking to it's full potential. We investigated, checked our keyword research, our site structure, interlinking, site speed, code to html ratio you name it we checked it. What we did pic up when looking at duplicate content is that the site is flagged by Google as duplicated, BUT so is most of the news sites because they all get their content from the same place. News get sold by big companies in the US (no I'm not from the US so cant say specifically where it is from) and they usually have disclaimers with these content pieces that you can't change the headline and story significantly, so we do have quite a few journalists that rewrites the news stories, they try and keep it as close to the original as possible but they still change it to fit our targeted audience - where my second point comes in. Even though the content has been duplicated, our site is more relevant to what our users are searching for than the bigger news related websites in the world because we do hyper local everything. news, jobs, property etc. All we need to do is get off this duplicate content issue, in general we rewrite the content completely to be unique if a site has duplication problems, but on a media site, im a little bit lost. Because I haven't had something like this before. Would like to hear some thoughts on this. Thanks,
                            Chris Captivate

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 360eight-SEO
                            0
                          • Creode

                            Duplicate content on ecommerce sites

                            duplicate content

                            I just want to confirm something about duplicate content. On an eCommerce site, if the meta-titles, meta-descriptions and product descriptions are all unique, yet a big chunk at the bottom (featuring "why buy with us" etc) is copied across all product pages, would each page be penalised, or not indexed, for duplicate content? Does the whole page need to be a duplicate to be worried about this, or would this large chunk of text, bigger than the product description, have an effect on the page. If this would be a problem, what are some ways around it? Because the content is quite powerful, and is relavent to all products... Cheers,

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Creode
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.