I had two pages on my site with identical content. What I did was 301 redirect one page to the other. I also added canonical redirect code to the page that held the 301 code. Here is what I have:
www.careersinmusic.com/music-colleges.aspx - this page was a duplicate and I needed it to resolve to:
www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx
Here is the code I used:
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music-colleges.aspx
<%@ Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="music-colleges.aspx.vb" Inherits="music_colleges" %>
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
http://www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx"/>
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music-colleges.aspx.vb
Partial Class music_colleges
Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader("Location", "http://www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx")
End Sub
End Class
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The problem:
For some reason, when the search “music colleges” is done in Google, I am #7. When the term “music schools” is done, I am around 119. I MUST be getting a penalty for some reason, I just cannot figure the reason. When perform well for one term and terrible for the next? All I can come up with is a duplicate content penalty or something along those lines.
Also, music-colleges.aspx seems to still be in Googles index, even though the above 301 happened months ago. Thoughts?
site:www.careersinmusic.com/music-colleges.aspx
Any insight into this would be GREATLY appreciated.
Many Thanks!