Something happened within the last 2 weeks on our WordPress-hosted site that created "duplicates" by counting www.company.com/example and company.com/example (without the 'www.') as separate pages. Any idea what could have happened, and how to fix it?
-
Our website is running through WordPress. We've been running Moz for over a month now. Only recently, within the past 2 weeks, have we been alerted to over 100 duplicate pages. It appears something happened that created a duplicate of every single page on our site; "www.company.com/example" and "company.com/example."
Again, according to our MOZ, this is a recent issue. I'm almost certain that prior to a couple of weeks ago, there existed both forms of the URL that directed to the same page without be counting as a duplicate.
Thanks for you help!
-
Thanks for marking those good answers, William. I'm so glad they were helpful to you!
-
Hey Eric,
Your last answer was very helpful, thank you! We were able to fix the redirects so the "www.company.com" pages redirected to the "company.com" pages, or so we thought. Our last crawl is showing us that on top of the duplicate page issues we know have "11% of site pages served 404 errors during the last crawl."
Do you have any insights on where we might have gone wrong?
Thanks again!
-
Hi William, thanks for your question! You've received some great responses. Did any help you solve your problem? If so, please mark one or both as "good answers." And if not, please give us an update on the issue you are dealing with, thanks!
Christy
-
Hi William,
Just as Eric said, it's like a problem triggered by the wordpress CMS.
I know 3 different ways to solve this problem:1- Using a plugin, that creates a redict 301.
2- Creating a redirection pattern in the .htaccess file. Here more info:
301 redirect (www.domain.com/index to www.domain.com) - Q&A Moz.com
3- In the case that redirects cannot be done, use rel=canonical in those pages making the problem.
I believe that this solution would need some coding creativity, to create a code that detects the URL non desired and put the right URL in the rel=canonical tag.
More info about that last:
301 Redirect or Rel=Canonical - Which One Should You Use? - Blog Moz.comHope its useful.
GR. -
Most likely it's a setting in WordPress that has been turned on or turned off. I'm not sure how you were redirecting your site from www.company.com to company.com, but that's typically done in the .htaccess file on the site.
What you'll need to do is verify that it's still happening first. Use a server header check tool to see if company.com is redirecting to www.company.com (or vice versa).
There are several ways to set up these redirects, and you'll have to figure out how you were doing it previously. If you were using a plugin, it could be that the plugin was removed or deactivated (or updated). It could also be in the site's theme, some themes allow you to set your "preferred version" of your domain.
Lastly, I would go into Google Search Console and make sure you have set your preferred domain there (www or non-www) so Google knows which version to use. If you have it set there, there's a chance that your site's rankings may not be affected.
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
-
How to answer for question "why xyz site is ranking for abc keyword" and not our website
Hi All, This is a layman question but would like to get a concrete answer for. I would like to know how to answer the questions like "Why our competitor is ranking for keyword ABC but not us"? What metrics or data can I showcase that gives logical answer. Please help in this regard. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Avin1230 -
WordPress – parent category "blog" instead of regular "post page"?
In WordPress you normally show you blog posts on: Your home page. Your "posts page" (configurable in the Reading Settings) I want to do neither and have a third option instead: Assign a parent category called "blog" for all posts, and show the latest posts on that category's archive page. For the readers, the experience will be 100% the same as a regular "posts page". The UI, permalinks, and breadcrumbs will be 100% the same. But, I have heard that the "posts page" is important for Google for indexing and understanding your blog. So is is smarter SEO-wise to use a "posts page" instead of a parent category named "blog"? What negative effects might there be, if I have no "posts page" and just use the parent category "blog" instead?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikolasB0 -
Base copy on 1 page, then adding a bit more for another page - potential duplicate content. What to do?
Hi all, We're creating a section for a client that is based on road trips - for example, New York to Toronto. We have a 3 day trip, a 5 day trip, a 7 day trip and a 10 day trip. The 3 day trip is the base, and then for the 5 day trip, we add another couple of stops, for the 7 day trip, we add a couple more stops and then for the 10 day trip, there might be two or three times the number of stops of the initial 3 day trip. However, the base content is similar - you start at New York, you finish in Toronto, you likely go through Niagara on all trips. It's not exact duplicate content, but it's similar content. I'm not sure how to look after it? The thoughts we have are:1) Use canonical tags 3,5,7 day trips to the 10 day trip.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalhothouse
2) It's not exactly duplicate content, so just go with the content as it is We don't want to get hit by any penalty for duplicate content so just want to work out what you guys think is the best way to go about this. Thanks in advance!0 -
Is their value in linking to PPC landing pages and using rel="canonical"
I have ppc landing pages that are similar to my seo page. The pages are shorter with less text with a focus on converting visitors further along in the purchase cycle. My questions are: 1. Is there a benefit for having the orphan ppc pages indexed or should I no index them? 2. If indexing does provide benefits, should I create links from my site to the ppc pages or should I just submit them in a sitemap? 3. If indexed, should I use rel="canonical" and point the ppc versions to the appropriate organic page? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandExpSteve0 -
Duplicate Content www vs. non-www and best practices
I have a customer who had prior help on his website and I noticed a 301 redirect in his .htaccess Rule for duplicate content removal : www.domain.com vs domain.com RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com [NC]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EnvoyWeb
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com/$1 [R=301,L,NC] The result of this rule is that i type MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com in the browser and it redirects to www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com I wonder if this is causing issues in SERPS. If I have some inbound links pointing to www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com and some pointing to MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com, I would think that this rewrite isn't necessary as it would seem that Googlebot is smart enough to know that these aren't two sites. -----Can you comment on whether this is a best practice for all domains?
-----I've run a report for backlinks. If my thought is true that there are some pointing to www.www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com and some to the www.MY-CUSTOMER-SITE.com, is there any value in addressing this?0 -
Www or no www
OK. Let's get the obvious out of the way. We all know to 301 www to root, or root to www. However, my questions for discussion is, which is better? Is it better to redirect the root to www or redirect the www to the root? I ask this from the context of links. Because, even though my client's sites are being redirected in the .htaccess file, I note different PA, DA, and link counts for www vs no www. It appears to me it doesn't seem to matter in the social signal arena. What I am thinking is that redirecting the root to www is better because humans naturally link with www, so you take advantage this natural aspect. Agree or disagree? Are there any other considerations to worry about? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OnlineMarketingGuy
Guy P.S. My opinion is to call BS on link juice through 301s. It may help, but it is never as good as a link with no redirects.0 -
Our Site's Content on a Third Party Site--Best Practices?
One of our clients wants to use about 200 of our articles on their site, and they're hoping to get some SEO benefit from using this content. I know standard best practices is to canonicalize their pages to our pages, but then they wouldn't get any benefit--since a canonical tag will effectively de-index the content from their site. Our thoughts so far: add a paragraph of original content to our content link to our site as the original source (to help mitigate the risk of our site getting hit by any penalties) What are your thoughts on this? Do you think adding a paragraph of original content will matter much? Do you think our site will be free of penalty since we were the first place to publish the content and there will be a link back to our site? They are really pushing for not using a canonical--so this isn't an option. What would you do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1 -
Where would the SEO juice go if I have a wordpress site hosted by godaddy?
I am planning on moving my website to a wordpress that is hosted by godaddy. I am wondering where the SEO juice that my website has already gained would go. Would it go to godaddy when I make the move instead?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SierraPCB0