Avoiding duplicate content/same pages

[challen]

hi I have been checking through all the Q and A but i i'm still not sure how you get http://www.domain.co.uk/index.html to be just http://www.domain.co.uk/?

Do you add canonical to the index page to point to the page you prefer and then add a 301 redirect?

thanks

[caseyhen]

Hi Challen,

The following code should remove all index.html from any page you go to but I recommend you get someone who is comfortable working with .htaccess files since you can do some damage if you don't do thing correct.  Plus not all code in .htaccess files works the same on every server.  So if the code in the other few answer doesn't work and neither does mine, it may be something to do with your host and you may need to check with them.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /index.html\ HTTP [NC]
RewriteRule (.*)index.html$ /$1 [R=301,L]

Casey

[challen]

hey no it didnt help as the two answers seem to be different.

is this right?

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

[KeriMorgret]

Did the .htaccess information answer your question, or do you still need some more help? I don't know your domain, so it's hard to know if you were able to get it implemented. =]

[perfectweb]

No it is not necessary. I like to add it just in case the .htaccess rules break at any time (e.g. when something else gets updated)

[ninjamarketer]

I don't think he will need the rel canonical as long as the proper redirect code is in place.

Thoughts??

[ninjamarketer]

Here is the code. Please add this to your .htaccess file. This will remove both index.php and www/non www canonicalization.

RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.co.uk [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]

RewriteEngine OnRewriteBase /RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.php\ HTTP/RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.domain.co.uk/ [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

[perfectweb]

Yeah, add a rel="canonical" to show what page you want (e.g. www.domain.co.uk") and then setup your .htaccess like:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.(htm|html|php) http://www.domain.co.uk/ [R=301,L]